One thing nobody mentioned/questioned: what kind of flaws were the OSes tested for, and what installation was made of Linux? Not distribution wise, I mean number of applications... Fedora Core, for example, comes on 3 CDs. Everybody that can open their mouth and say they know Linux realizes that the OS itself doesn't take that much space; if it was a bootstrapped text-based Gentoo distribution, updated, then I'd like to see some results aswell. Install minimum Windows and minimum Linux and test then.

I already mentioned what kind of flaws, and by that I mean remote, local, privilege escalation, everything... what kind of a vuln it was etc. So I'm still sketchy about many things.

I get free MS licenced software through my University. Well, OSes and .NET, but I don't know to what degree I will be using them... want to test the Server for now, will see what else later. So for the next five years my choices can be entirely based on what I like more since both Linux and Windows cost me the same [two or three blank CDs ]

But anyway, the original thread poster has some gaps to fill I feel.