OK, so I get up, shower, eat, and open up my email client. Number 4 from the top is a Daniweb email telling me about the wonderful topics currently being discussed - here's the list:
* Prevent programs from saving to certain folder? in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Win7: To Migrate or Not to Migrate? in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Error Code 8024402c in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* connecting to localhost` in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Cant install any programs... Help! in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Windows 7 Regional Themes in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Hi every one in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* When I boot computer Error Appear. in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Add-on for Windows7 File Manager in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Laptop wont start.... in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Installing Ram Problem in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Hello everyone problem with audio on vista home in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Issues with moving from XP to Vista in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Vista + Fedora - Hibernate in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* windows 7 display driver in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* vista shared folders in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Ballmer Won't Call Google by Name in Interview in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* cd tray wont open.vista home basic in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Windows 7 Blue Screen in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* invalid boot.in file in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Icons on Desktop layered with another strange icon in ! Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Windows 7 Wallpapers in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* bad image in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Is the FSF shooting the open-source community in the foot? in Windows Vista and Windows 7
* My Vista became incredible slow in Windows Vista and Windows 7
Now quite frankly, this list is enough to make me want to puke. This site is supposedly for geeks. Well, real geeks don't run Windows. Real geeks don't run any Microsoft products, because we understand enough about operating systems and application programs, to know that Microsoft products are total, absolute, pieces of garbage.
Microsloth (my pet name for them, because their product delivery dates are so often late) is probably the least competent corporation on the planet. Let's take a look at some of their products:
1) XBox360 - the most badly designed game console ever.
2) Microsoft Windows 1.0 - 5 years behind GEM and GEOS
3) Internet Exploder 3 - the only browser with a file size limit on downloads, curiously it was set low enough that you couldn't download Netscape with it.
4) Microsoft Outlook & Express - the most advanced virus transmission tools ever devised.
5) Internet Exploder 6 - Totally unable to render standards compliant web pages.
6) Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 - the only ODF "capable" application that can't properly write ODF files. This one is particularly note able because 20 other applications can do it - but the biggest software company on the planet was too incompetent to manage to do it right.
7) Security - let's face it - no other operating system on the planet has the security problems that Windows has, because they all use a proper security model, while Windows uses something that appears to have been designed by a drunken Zebra. Oh, and for all those who claim that Linux and OSX will suffer just as many virus problems when they get popular, well you're wrong. Linux and OSX were designed securely from the ground up. Even Microsoft admits that Windows was not designed to be secure.
I could continue - but you should have gotten the idea by this point. Windows is a total and utter piece of garbage, designed by an incompetent corporation, which wouldn't be able to survive if it hadn't managed to turn a clone of another operating system into a monopoly position in the market place.
What you have to ask yourself is, what are you going to do if Microsoft crashes and burns? Their year end financials were not that good, and if the first quarter results end up being what I think they will be, there is a significant possibility that this could happen. Don't laugh. Think. Where was General Motors 6 years ago? Did anyone think 6 years ago that General Motors would end up in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection?
Oh, I don't think Microsoft will die this year, or the next, but you should start putting together an exit plan just in case, and you this is a good option, it will run on damned near any hardware you can through at it, and even autodetected my wireless card, and ran it, with no need to search for drivers. You won't get that from Windows.