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>Yes, MS could .. but they have decided to keep the OS open, as opposed to Apple, which keeps tight reins on the Mac OS.

Pardon me???... MS keeps the OS "open"??? Not that I can see.
And aren't there lots of MAC applications on the market, including some written by MS itself?
This argument that MAC is not "open" doesn't seem to hold, at least in my eyes. I can buy monitors, SCSI devices, Firewire devices, USB devices, etc that attach to MAC.
So I have lots of software and hardware that I can buy for the MAC. Maybe the "openness" that you refer to has to do with drivers? If so, has it really been in either MS' or our interest to not keep a tight rein on those things? We may get a little cheaper hardware, but that cost seems redeemed over and over again when costs of sudden outages are included.

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>>If anything, software should be far far EASIER to manufacture "cleanly" because it is non-physical!!!! That it is as it is today - CRAPPY - is testament to marvellous marketing that is focused on NEW and not on BETTER. Oh sure, they say it is "better". From a functionality point-of-view they may be accurate, but from a QUALITY point-of-view they are lying through their fangs.
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>I disagree. I experience far less crashes with XP than I ever did with WIn3.x, 95, 98, NT, or 2000. And with each of those versions, I noticed a difference. Performance has gotten better and the OS more stable.

Sure it has. Now they only crash the application instead of the whole machine. While that's helpful, it is NOT the answer. And it's really ahrd to confirm performance improvements from Win-to-Win release when minimum requirements change and machines get faster and other stuff constantly shifts. Does a faster shutdown really mean that an OS has 'better performance'?

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