3.1 rocked! I never managed a blue screen of death on that, although thinking about it i only used it when I was 10 for using microsofts games, paint, notepad and some BASIC programming :-)

People have probably clung to the older OS because of the recent viruses that had major media hype surrounding them, SoBig and Master Blaster have given XP and 2000 a bad name, saying that XP professional I have found quite stable, except on the computers at my university, but as MissMitterns said in another post, educational computers tend to be a bit flakey.

Also MS products are so damn expensive, and IMO i dont think that the support provided with them is anywhere near the level of support that can be obtained from the open source community.

Unfortuatly its just the change that is stopping more people moving over to the free OS's and other economical rubbish. The hospital service are doing a trial in this country on Linux because they can no longer afford the costs of the licenceses for MS products, I asked someone i know about this and they said they could hardly get there head round MS products. This is where MS has the distinct advantage, they captured the market early and some would say created a monopoly, thus making people think and learn only on one OS. For the people who arent as into computers as us this will resort in them having to relearn, something non computer lovers tend not to be to keen on.

Another thing that creates great debates in my cricle of friends is about the arguement that MS is better than Linux and Linux is better than MS, personnally if I was given the choice it would be Linux every time, but this isnt because i think its better or wot not. It has the tools and documentation I like, I like being able to play with code, work in real time, have more choice. But then you wouldnt use anything other than a Mac for some graphics work would you? and you might need MS for something...But people are all to quick to jump in and say one is better, admitedly, some have better features than others, if the world combined them all then we'd have an amazing real time os, with RISC archceture, that a large percentage no how to use :-)

i2c