Why Linux works for some, and Windows works for others 168 plus 108

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:14:11 +0000, billwg

certainly, but there are two factors at work here. First, the user (in general) will have had NO choice bu to use XP. Secondly, as I stated, the change from 98 (say) to XP is quite considerable and therefore the excuse about re-educating doesn't wash.

The linux problem is to get a user to make a

Which would be made very much easier if the major vendors (and I'm not jusr talking about OEM hardware manufacturers but retail outlets such as PC World, Comet, Dixons and Curry's here in the UK) actualy gave their customers a REAL choice in this matter. But they don't.

One of the blocks to getting a favorable

Brings us back to whether MS puts undue pressure (whether covertly or not) on manufacturers to ONLY supply Windows?

There are those who say that

No, at this moment, it is sufficient that the VAST majority of Joe Public users do not know abhout Linux AT ALL because when they wander into PC World et al, it's not there!

So if I'm not MCP, MCSE, MCDST or MCSA you don't think I'm experienced in Windows? There are MANY MANY "unofficial" sysadmins who have NO "qualifications" at all, the ability to do the job over-riding academic qualifications.

you mean.

So the fact that there are documented "blips" in running Office 97 on XP is a "cost-saving"? Office 95 won't run on XP AT ALL. There is constantly pressure to upgrade to the newest Office package at quite a large cost, relative. users don't "pay a third-party supplier", they pay MS instead! What's the difference, other than they are rapidly locked in to MS's proprietary document formats? And how long will it be before they are FORCED to upgrade, because their version of Office isn't supported anymore and then find that the new version can't read some or all of their old documents? There are already considerable differences between the supported formats of Office 97 and Office 2003, noticeably in the Outlook pst format.

I think you are being a bit disingenuous here: don't forget we live in "Rip off" Britain. The cheapest (legal) OEM XP home upgrade I could find in the UK is £78.99 - that's nearly US$150. Same with Office - £195 - that's nearly US$400!!!! So those are THREE to FOUR times more expensive than the figures you quote.

But as we all know - 75 - 85% of windows users do NOT pay any attention to what they are doing, do they? If they did there would be hardly ANY viruses at all, would there? That argument just doesn't wash at all I'm afraid.

No it's not. However, the End user Licence Agreement states in the matter of an OEM copy of Windows, that it CANNOT be transfered to another machine AT ALL. Even the EULA for a retail copy of XP states that it CANNOT be installed more than one machine at a time. And if it's an upgrade copy, then the licence is tied to the OS that you upgraded from, in other words, you can't use a retail upgrade copy of XP to upgrade a machine with W98 installed, and then use the same copy to upgrade another machine with W2K installed on two counts - 1 the licence is tied to the OS that you first upgraded, and 2 - you can't (legally) activate the second installation anyway. (You actually can, but that's not the point of this anyway)

A cynic would show that Microsoft seems to go

-- Registered Linux User no 240308 Fedora Core 4, Pan, Thunderbird and Firefox

gordonATgbpcomputingDOTcoDOTuk to email me remove the obvious!