Suggestion for the future: central "server" device with remote login capability used by multiple portable devices, possibly even owned by their user. One at home doubling as a media server, several at work, whatever. "Cloud Computing" without the slogan and in your own facility. One "mainframe" to maintain. What OS? Maybe MS will see the writing on the wall and make it easy to choose their OS for the central server instead of erecting toll booths, because it won't be difficult for some wag to create a multiple login app/hack for XP or W7 and then what.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1