How about a comparison on merit, not marketing 1507

IBM and Novell, apparently. Just because a mbutt consumer market exists does not mean that nobody will want to serve other markets. It doesn't work that way in any other business, why should it work that way in the software business?

But why does it have to be a business? There are other models for software development. You alternate between refusing to acknowledge them and denigrating them as unworkable, but that doesn't make them go away.

I don't. I resent that such products are touted as the solution to any and all computing problems.

So is XP Pro designed as the "bag of tools" to which I referred? No, it is not. How about 2003 Server? Small Business Sever? Nope. These products take the approach of pre-packaging each functionality at a different price. The idea of building your own from tools contained in the package is not really part of the design. The idea of an end-user taking one pacakge and turning it into another as his needs change is not part of the plan.

When needs change users are supposed to buy a different package for yet another price, even if the need is only temporary. If there is no other package that is suitable, then if I understand you crrectly that means the need is irrelevant and not worthy of solution. Unfortunately, reality tends to intrude.

So the ignorant should just be left to their own devices? Do you think you are insulting me? What?

I'm saying that in many cases these "techno-dweebs" you so dislike would be more effective and customers would get more for their money overall if they spent their time setting up Linux systems instead of trying to beat Windows into the shape their customers want. Most of them do in fact spend most of their time on Windows, not on Linux.

If people are getting ripped off, then they are getting ripped off twice. Once by Microsoft, who sold them this system that was so easy anyone could do it, and then again by the guy they called in when that proved to be untrue.

Windows does not make things simple. In general what it does is make simple things even more simple and hard things impossible. I don't know about the "techno-dweebs" to which you refer, but I hate Windows because it lacks flexibility and places too many restrictions on my use of it.

The goal of Windows is to make Microsoft money. To that end they have chosen to specialize in the mbutt consumer market. To advance the goal of making money from consumers, Windows is (supposedly) designed to allow someone who knows next to nothing about computers to set one up and operate it to a limited degree. It is not, and is not intended to be, easy to configure for jobs that were not planned in advance by the designers.

Take "wizards" for example. They allow the user to select from among a number of predefined scenarios. This works well as long as the users want to do the kinds of things that have been thought of and programmed into the wizard. If not, then the wizard is not so useful.

Windows itself is like that. It is not designed to be configured by the end-user beyond cosmetics. Each version is designed to be used in a certain restricted set of scenarios. If your usage pattern does not quite fit the scenario (and it won't because the scenarios are based on averages and nobody is exactly average), they you end up fighting with the software to make it do what you want.

Nowhere in the post to which you are responding did I mention price. I talked about the difficulty of molding Windows into the shapes I want.

As I told you in another thread, I don't much care whether Linux becomes dominant on the desktop, destroys Windows, and takes over the world. If so, fine, if not, then not. That seems to be your concern more than mine. I only care that I have a tool that does what I need it to do.

-- - Bob Hauck - A proud member of the reality-based community.