I wasn't thinking of expensive and by habit, use the 180-day trial version that MS provides, for this kind of purpose.

The FreeBSD and Linux distros are easily and legally downloadable from the sites as is other software. Also, I didn't mean to suggest that he should have 8 machines but rather a variety. Pick and choose differences so you can understand what is different between them. I have some pretty cheap old "abuse" boxes that I use and have at one point or another had: Novell 5, Mac OS9, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, RH, Suse, Slackware 9, Windows 2000, Win98.

I perhaps should have been clear on that and for that I apologize. I wrote by habit of what I expect my students to do in class.

The reason you look at the default is so you can understand what the system starts with and what the dangers are with a default install. Novell, under default, doesn't have the same issues and needs fewer checks than either MS or *nix (specifically Linux). Then, once you understand the flaws (problems) with default you can go about looking for the specific fixes and build on that. Pen testing is the best for this kind of thing. Check for vulnerabilities, find them, fix, repeat ad nauseum.

Thanks, soule.