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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Matt" data-source="post: 101269" data-attributes="member: 1213">I am an OSX fan myself, but if you are going M$ and are not doing extremely serious photoshop power user work, go XP Pro (or corporate if possible). In order to limit spyware,  buy the furthest step from Home (Avoid like the plague), be sure to go through all known steps to disable what is left, and then use a tracer and a firewall to block outgoing traffic on M$s spy ports.XP IS almost as stable, and easier to use and maintain.  If you are more of a power-user, tohugh, you can go for 2k.A funny story about XP home.  My friend's new HP laptop is messed up to the point of requiring a sys reinstall to allow full functioning.  However, their deal with M$  stipulates that the customer is only entitled to restore CDs that erase everything, and all that the comp has for backup is a floppy (why the h*ll do you Windows users stil use that sh*t?).In spite of the fact that , as I live in a college dorm, you'd think that absolutely any software could be found, I was completely unable to find a WinXP Home Ed CD to reinstall off of with her completely legitimate serial #.  Since Home is too full of spyware to pirate, and since everyone who builds their own computer pirates the OS, and everyone who knows what they are doing and buys a corporate-made computer will either spend a little extra for XP Pro, or get whatever OS is cheapest and then pirate XP Pro or Corporate to put on it, the only people who have XP Home are newbies who buy their computers from corporations.However, M$ tends to have the same corrupt, consumer @$$-raping policy with most other corporate manufacturers as well, preventing people from trying to properly maintian their machines. Thus, not wanting to ruin a perfectly good license by putting a pirated copy of XP Pro (the only version anyone had) on  (besides, she is the kind to send tihngs in for service...that would be bad) I had to do an Xover cable  backup, a refresh cd run, and an Xover reutrn.    M$ thus screws over newbies who dont know any better, as those are the only people who actually pay for their $550 OS's anyway.Contrast that with Apple.  My Mac came with reformatting refresh CDs, but it also came with separate bootable, computer-specific OS X AND 9 CDs, as well, as the one of each in its stardard form as it would be availible off the shelf.  Heck, my keyboard came with an OS 9.1 update CD, just in case.  And OS X only costs $130, and thats the most that Apple has ever dared to charge.</blockquote>

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