"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...

If you are tired of paying Microsoft every time you change the
color adjustment on your monitor -- let alone make some more
substantial
change -- why not go to some version of linux. Nothing you have
listed
above seems to exclusively call for Windows -- unlike certain CAD
programs or the like which may only be *made* for Windows.

You overly exaggerate the problems of Windows. It's as big as it is
for good reasons.

Mitre dumped MS after the Cuckoo's Egg incident and tried to live on
Macs and Sparcs but whenever we really needed to get something done in
the lab we had to get permission for a Windows PC. I've watched newly
graduated engineers who were pious linux accolytes slowly and
grudgingly switch to XP, with Cygwin as a last futile gesture of
defiance.

It was no fun at all when they hit me with linux and discovered I knew
it plus commands they didn't, as I had once been asked to write DOS
batch files that emulate the common unix commands and switches.

-jsw