Well that's the ugliest implementation of a package manager I've ever seen.<p>But that is the answer. A package manager. Simplified installation for users, keeps things secure (as long as vendors push updates to the repos) and probably makes Microsoft some cash from selling stuff.<p>But it's certainly not a new idea.
I'm the CEO of allmyapps. Needless to say I 100% agree that it is how installing & managing apps should have been on Windows 7!
We are on our way to v2 now... let me show you a screenshot of the upcoming version [1] (it is a HN exclusivity btw!)<p>While the current version (1.5) is .NET/WPF based, we've switched to full C++/Webkit for v2. Results are impressive: launch <2s even on the crappiest PC we could find, <40Mb of memory footprint... and, best of all, the UI is just "fast and fluid"(tm).<p>[1]<a href="http://static.allmyapps.com/images/uploads/allmyapps_v2.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://static.allmyapps.com/images/uploads/allmyapps_v2.jpg</a>