[thelist] Which OS to trust for keeping productive?

[Dave]

>
>In my experience, how long you can keep an OS running depends on how
>you treat it. Install/uninstall lots of cr*p and you'll find you
>probably need to reload things every few months - no matter what OS
>you're on.
>
>At work, where we use an SOE-type environment, and users do not have
>administratives privileges we've had XP machines running since we put
>XP in, in 2002 without reloading the OS. We also have Windows 2000
>machines running since April 2001 when we put those in.
>
>Personally I use Windows XP Pro or Windows 2003 Server for my
>machines. I configure my own firewalls, have AV software etc. I only
>install mainstream app on my core OSes (Office, Acrobat, Photoshop,
>Visual Studio). Everything even remotely suspect (apps from small
>vendors, beta software etc) goes into a virtual machine.
>
>Cheers
>Ken
>  
>
Ok, then I guess I will move on with XP Pro from here. It just seems 
like an annoying OS because of its bloat, built in time delays, and 
registry hacks needed to make it behave like the older OS's. Once I get 
it the way I like it I will be ok. I have enough other pc's to use one 
as the virtual machine as I don't yet have that virtual pc software. I 
always have other pc's with similar setups so I am always capable of 
getting soething done so I guess I was just spending too much time 
mumbling  as my crash proof XP crashed yet again :)
Thanks,
Dave