XP is garbage

[Chris Carlen]

learning@learning.com wrote:

In <1113270424.744548.318740@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, on 04/11/05
at 06:47 PM, "JeffM" <jeffm_@email.com> said:

I sure wish I could image the hard drive to a DVD or two.
TrueImage bombs... anybody know of something that works?
John Larkin

The granddaddy of cloning tools:
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:QKe5Cy6porsJ:service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/pfdocs/2002030414141625+norton-ghost+to-a-dvd

Click on Tested DVD drives.

There are as many opinions, as there are users. Run and hide from Norton
Ghost. It will fail you when you need it most.

Let the objections begin, but remember you have been warned by someone who
has waited years and years to see if Norton/Symantec could ever get it
right. Not so far.

www.dfsee.com At least the author will help you quickly, and kindly.

JB

One thing I do love about Linux is the low-level CD-R(W)/DVD+-R(W/RAM)
tools. You can approach them with GUI interfaces, or at the command
line. Thus, one can create very simple scripts to do all the stuff John
wants to do.

The best thing is that with such low-level access, you can perform
verifications and diffs to ensure data integrity, in exactly the way you
want. The GUI tools might offer options on this, but you never really
know what they did.

I trust my backups only to well verified scripted burning operations.


Good day!



--
_______________________________________________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov
NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and "BOGUS" from email address to reply.

 

In <115no5d8pcccf27@corp.supernews.com>, on 04/12/05
at 02:52 PM, Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com> said:

Frank Bemelman wrote:

That's not the Chris that I know But I agree totally. Linux
(+ apps) grows bigger and bigger, becomes the same 'bloatware'
as windows is.

Try Slackware. It runs great on 32MB of RAM and 520MB of hard disk. Use
Icewm instead of Gnome or KDE, or simply stay on the command line. Use
Links or w3m for your browser. Then come back and tell me whether Linux
is as bloated as Windows.

Linux is as bloated as windwoes. The latest versions of Slackware barely
run on my P166 128M laptop.

Using a crappy, cheapo desktop that you have to modify with a text editor
is stupid and totally unproductive. Of course it will be leaner and a bit
quicker, but its also totally unusable to all but the most hardcore users.

If Windows had ugly, stripped down desktops that were as nonfunctional
and impossible to work with as IceWM to replace its dopey interface, it
would scream as well as anything out there.

I have been wanting to see linux run anywhere as near as quick and nimble
as Windows or any of my OS/2 installations on the same hardware, and it
has yet to happen. I have spent too much time with hdparms, setting up all
kinds of switches, turning off services, and recompiling kenels. It helps
a little, but I have never seen linux run appear as fast as OS/2, or even
windows2K on equal hardware. In the scheme of life, if you spend fifty
hours tweaking a linux distro, and it doesn't run a whole lot faster than
windwoes, its a waste of time. Especially when you get to do it all over
again when the next revision comes out and obsoletes half of the apps you
have downloaded.

I like the idea of linux, I think it had the potential to take a bite out
of redmond, but the inability of the community to listen to other users
without going off the deep end as if they had been slapped upside the head
has caused irreversible damage, and contributed to the bad reputation, and
the splintering of the whole package.

When someone completely buries the underpinnings, and creates a user
interface that is logical, useful, fairly customizable, and applications
become pretty much universal, and when the community gets over itself, and
begins to name archive files something useful and recognizable, so that
anyone can tell what is going on, and when it can be run from the desktop
without having to go under the hood, Linux will jump back into the
mainstream consideration. Even after all these years of anticipation, it
is still just a hackers OS. For those who bother to hammer on it, and
tweak and tune, I certainly admit it is a wonderful environment. I spent
over twenty years hacking on OS's and had a great time. Now I need to be
productive. Linux doesn't make me productive. How many different partition
managers multimedia players, and text editors do we really need?

JB

 

[Chris Carlen]

Guy Macon wrote:

Chris Carlen wrote:

The different distros all have
their own way of doing things, so no apps work the same across all of
them. They customize the vanilla apps such as OpenOffice and Mozilla to
integrate with their desktop and config tools, so you can't upgrade the
apps with drop in packages direct from the originating projects.

You just haven't looked in the right place. There is a Linux distribution
that never customizes apps - they are exactly as they would be if you
got them from the author and did a default install.

See [ http://www.slackware.com ].

Each version gets worse, in direct proportion to how much more
"smart" it tries to be. I am considering going back to Slackware
with which I started 9 years ago, but I can't afford another 1-2
months of tinkering to get it all set up.

I know the feeling; back then Slackware needed a lot or twaeking.
The latest version installs and runs with a minimum of tinkering.

Interesting. I am about convinced that when I have time to move away
from this quirky mess of Suse 9.1, I will go back to Slack.

How's the ease of use of hotplug with USB flash drives on Slack? Do you
have the most recent 10.1? I downloaded it and haven't used it yet.
What a waste of bandwidth, huh?

And no matter what I do, more and more of the web sites that I simply
must use to run my life, have show stopping quirks or issues unless IE
is used. Or even more depressingly, they work with an alternative
browser such as Firefox on Windows, but not on Linux.

Alas, you are right. I still keep a Windows 200 box on my local
network to run IE and PowerBASIC.

And I'm not talking about superfluous sites, but rather financial, etc.



Good day!




--
_______________________________________________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov
NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and "BOGUS" from email address to reply.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 08:22:47 +0100, Paul Burke <paul@scazon.com>
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

The three most important things about Windows are still: reboot,
reboot, and reboot.

I thought Microsoft was part of the American Constitution, and you swore
loyalty every July 4th?

Is that what you concluded from the title of my thread?

John

 

[Chris Carlen]

Ted Edwards wrote:

Chris Carlen wrote:

At this point I would pay serious personal money, say $500-$600 for a
PC OS that was very solid, with the flexibility and features that I
like about Linux, and with the vast pool of applications and hardware
available for Windows. But it doesn't exist. And the Mac hardware is

Have you looked at eCS? It certainly has the ease of use and the
reliability. It's still a bit of a pain finding certain classes of
accessories but it is getting better.

Ted

I do like Linux. I like the CLI, and I like X. I don't like the
inconsistencies, and the quirks.

I would really like to see a commercial company like IBM or Novell
perfect desktop Linux. They are doing well at making the install easier
(as long as things go well with your hardware, which is 95% of the time,
not too bad) but not so well with including only solid bug-free apps in
the distro.

And they have a tendency to perform experiments on the users, by
installing truly beta-grade cutting edge packages because they add the
features folks want, but are quirky.

The worst thing is that serious problems may surface only after
investing large amounts of time into using a particular app. My Mozilla
is now a disaster because it appears it gets into trouble with very
large email folders. It bogs down even plain web surfing. And other
wierd things happen. Upgrading, deleting index files and recreating
them, etc. etc. doesn't fix the problem.


Agh.

I have to get to work...



--
_______________________________________________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov
NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and "BOGUS" from email address to reply.

 

In <d3gnok0roi@news2.newsguy.com>, on 04/12/05
at 07:59 AM, Chris Carlen <crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov> said:

And when someone with 9 years of Linux experience, not just occasionally
tinkering but *using* it every day for almost all my PC desktop
computing goes and posts something negative, they call me a troll.

Pathetic.

Yes, you certainly are, and a perfect example of the community that can do
no wrong, and gets the nose out of joint when someone disses their beloved
operating system.

Keep it up. Such an approach is bound to bring in one or two new users a
year......

I don't think its so much that linux is a bad thing, but its supporters
really need some counseling.

 

[Chris Carlen]

Daniel Haude wrote:

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 13:20:53 -0700,
Chris Carlen <crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov> wrote
in Msg. <d3em74031k3@news1.newsguy.com

Linux might very well be getting worse. The different distros all have
their own way of doing things, so no apps work the same across all of
them.

This configurability is exactly what I think is keeping Linux from gaining
more desktop popularity. The look and feel of Windows isn't configurable,
so it works in the same lame way everywhere, which is a great plus.

The configurability isn't a problem, and can always be there under the
surface waiting to be exploited. It's the lack of a standard default
configuration. LSB isn't enough. The distros shouldn't have 268.76
different configuration tools, and recompile the most important apps
with custom hooks into their deviations from LSB (or where LSB just
doesn't restrict them). And then top it off by not shipping a
functional media player. Then KDE comes along and tries to do everyhint
their way on top of the distro's way. I have a Yast printer
configuration tool and a KDE configuration tool. Ridiculous. How do I
know if I do something in the KDE one it won't muck up what was done by
Yast? I don't.

And no matter what I do, more and more of the web sites that I simply
must use to run my life, have show stopping quirks or issues unless IE
is used. Or even more depressingly, they work with an alternative
browser such as Firefox on Windows, but not on Linux.

I'm very happy with firefox on Linux. I've used Opera before, but Firefox
seems to be even better.

But [Linux]
isn't providing ordinary users with an escape path, only a narrow group
of highly technically skilled developers/users. I am becoming convinced
that Linux will never become the solution to the Microsoft problem, for
reasons the Linux community will never ever be able to admit.

That's because it's hard to admit that the advantages of a better system
are its main obstacles against wider acceptance.

Yes, there is no comprehension that users don't care about technology or
philosophy. They want to get their work done. When I had time to
tinker I though Linux was the coolest thing around. When I just want to
get my work done I wind up hating it, like I did Windows.

At this point I would pay serious personal money, say $500-$600 for a PC
OS that was very solid, with the flexibility and features that I like
about Linux, and with the vast pool of applications and hardware
available for Windows.

Linux/Unix already is that, except that to really unleash its power
(and to fix things if they break) you need to get somewhat familiar with
its mechanics, which can't and shouldn't be expected from a normal home or
office user.

Yes, by understanding it after the appropriate (large) investment in
time you can make it work, 99% of the time. But that isn't enough. I
can do that quite well. Trouble is, I don't have time. I want to spend
time getting my work done, not getting Linux to do my work. If Windows
can get the document printed without a 4-hour fuss hand editing .ppd
files then I'll just switch to Windows. I don't care at that point how
evil and rotten MS is or how poorly Windows is coded, or even how
insecure (what do I care I'm behind a firewall anyway) it is. Rather it
offers the one simple thing I want--the quickest results. That is the
perspective of a user, and the one which the Linux community just
doesn't grasp.

Linux will only ever make it to desktops in offices where there is a
sysadmin to keep things running, or with people like me who actually know
how things work. Which means that Linux is dead for the mass desktop and
always has been.

--Danial (happy Linux user for 15 years)

BTW, I fired up MS Office for the first time in many months the other
day to edit some simple document from my boss. Within minutes I was
mired in a maze of peculiar quirky and likely buggy behavior. I have
been known to open a Word document and have Word crash within seconds,
on a system that functions perfectly running all my non-MS Windows apps.
Go figure. Truly, MS Office must be one of the few programs in the
world that are more crappy than even OpenOffice and typical Linux software.

Interestingly, the best software I run are *commercial* apps for Win or
Linux, excluding those from MS. AutoCAD, Eagle, and LTSpice are my faves.

Good day!


--
_______________________________________________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov
NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and "BOGUS" from email address to reply.

 

[Chris Carlen]

Frank Bemelman wrote:

"Chris Carlen" <crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov> schreef in bericht
news:d3em74031k3@news1.newsguy.com...

[snip]

of highly technically skilled developers/users. I am becoming convinced
that Linux will never become the solution to the Microsoft problem, for
reasons the Linux community will never ever be able to admit.

That's not the Chris that I know

It is a conclusion I am reaching with great sorrow.

But I agree totally. Linux (+ apps)
grows bigger and bigger, becomes the same 'bloatware' as windows is.
What we see on the outside of our computer, the screen and printer, suggests
that it is all pretty simple and should be able to work perfect. But it
is so incredibly complicated to make it all happen. Third parties adding
hardware and drivers that have small flaws, end-users that install all
kinds of crap software. Maintaining backward-compatiblity even back to
the old dos stuff. What can you expect. The fact that it even sort of
works, is a miracle and nothing less.

Yes, this needs to be appreciated.

It would be nice if Microsoft stopped adding features and focussed on
improving reliability. In a way they are already doing this.

Well XP doesn't seem like much of an improvement over Win2k, which I
hace to say actually deserves a B+ or so. That's a major compliment
coming from myself.

[edit]

I'm not complaining. Many days I don't need to reboot my windows PC.
If I am going to do a lot of work in Protel, I know I will have
to reboot once or twice, often *after* closing Protel. It's not
that bad.

That would really annoy me, more even than the stoopid quirks I'm
learning to live with.


Good day!


--
_______________________________________________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov
NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and "BOGUS" from email address to reply.

 

[Mark Jones]

What the hell are you guys doing to corrupt your WinXP installs? I've heard bad
reports about the SP2, but other than that XP is more stable and robust than 2K.

I've used 'em all. 3.11 was okay, 256 colors and all. Winsock and Win32s was
fun. What a learning experience. Crashes and bugs were common. Then NT/95 came
out. NT was not available to the public. 95 sucked balls. So much so, that
Microsoft had to make 95b and 95 OSR2 just to patch major bugs. 95 crashed
religiously, due to its poor memory management. Then came 98. Leaps and bounds
better than 95, but still has the same memory management issues because it was
based on the earlier kernel. Dreaded "Blue Screen Of Death" had become a
world-known phrase. Daily reboots were in order, but one could probably go a
week if the system was well-maintained. Then comes Win2k, a novel idea modelled
from the NT core but for consumers. ('Bout damn time.) Win2k was pretty good to
me. SP4 caused a lot of problems though. The memory manager was much more robust
in 2k, preventing most dreaded page-faults and lockups. The system drivers
started moving from real-mode to protected-mode, making even system-level
routines and services fault-tolerant.

Enter: XP. All I have to say about XP Pro SP1 is that my box gets rebooted once
a month at the most, and I can't remember the last time I saw an exception error
- maybe last year sometime? And this is on a tweaked out, overclocked AMD system
with a gig of ram, SATA RAID+0, DVDRW and CDRW, nVIDIA GeForce 5600 ultra /w
video I/O, USB HDD/scanner/camera, PIC programmer, etc... I have ZERO complaints
about XP's stability. It is by far, the most stable M$ OS I've ever seen. Where
you guys are getting your piss and vinegar from, sounds more like an alterior
motive than statistical data IMHO.

I have tried Mandrake and a few other 'nixes. The Matrix screensaver was cool,
but I couldn't run most of the M$ power-apps on it like Proteus VSM or Sony
Vegas Video and there is no comparible equivalent. If another OS existed which
could do what Winblows can do or better, then I'd be interested. It sucks that
M$ dominates the marketplace... but they don't HAVE to be dominating the
marketplace - I don't see anyone else stepping up. That said, I'd love to code a
new OS, knowing what we know now. The new 64-bit processors include many new
registers, making software development a whole new ballgame. It is true that
Windows OS's just keep getting bigger and more bloated. But it has to, to retain
backwards compatibility. Eliminating that bottleneck alone, would be a
revolutionary improvement. Of course, that means all new apps, and nobody would
buy a new OS (even if it was the greatest on Earth) if no apps were made for it.
Oh well.


-- "I can conceptualize what infinity is, but I cannot imagine it." MCJ 200406

 

[Joerg]

Hello Joel,

...and unfortunately I suspect that QNX's days might be numbered with so
many companies now switching to Linux for their embedded OSes... :-(

I don't think so (yet). Besides what Guy said there is also liability
and regulatory burden. While an open source collection of software might
work nicely there are lots of applications that require a thorough and
seamless design history file. For example, all medical applications.
"Oh, this was designed by peers but I am not sure who did exactly what"
isn't going to fly before the FDA.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

 

[Joerg]

Hello Guy,

You have to decide whether you want something that runs like Windows
or doesn't run like Windows. If it's like Windows, it's insecure.
If it's secure the user has to do some things in a non-windows
fashion, such as not running as root/administrator.

Thing is, I cannot decide. There is a certain number of programs I need
to run for business reasons. If there is only one that runs under
Windows and nothing else I am stuck. So is everybody else.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

 

In <Do6dnU3-G8SPacbfRVn-hw@buckeye-express.com>, on 04/12/05
at 12:13 PM, Mark Jones <abuse@127.0.0.1> said:

What the hell are you guys doing to corrupt your WinXP installs? I've
heard bad reports about the SP2, but other than that XP is more stable
and robust than 2K.
PIC programmer, etc... I have ZERO complaints about XP's stability. It is
by far, the most stable M$ OS I've ever seen. Where you guys are getting
your piss and vinegar from, sounds more like an alterior motive than
statistical data IMHO.

Let's take a look at that position..... Several hundred million users,
and you. You don't have problems, odds are some of those several million
users do. Therefore, the perception is that some people don't have
trouble, while many, many more have lots of troubles.

Why do you think that just because your system is without any problems,
everyone else's must also be that way? I have used win2K SP2 for years,
and it next to OS/2, it is the most reliable system I have ever used on a
PC. If you are trouble free, knock on wood, because that is an anomaly
for sure.

If you look at what they had to do to make XP out of Win2K, you will see
that, by design, XP will be more unstable than Win2K. Given the number of
installations, an occasional one will probably be fine, but many more will
suffer due to the inherent flaws created by turning a robust server into
a game machine.

I have used XP on a number of machines. From this perspective, it is not
as robust and reliable as Win2K. Everyone will see different results, so
its rather rude to imply that some people are doing anything wrong.

Some folks swear that Win98SE is the best OS, and for them, it may well
be.

Everyone's mileage will vary.

 

[Guy Macon]

learning@learning.com wrote:

Linux is as bloated as windwoes. The latest versions of Slackware barely
run on my P166 128M laptop.

You had a choice, and you chose to install everything and then to
run Gnome or KDE. The latest version of Slackware runs just fine
on my 100 Hhz 486 with 100MB of RAM.

Using a crappy, cheapo desktop that you have to modify with a text editor
is stupid and totally unproductive. Of course it will be leaner and a bit
quicker, but its also totally unusable to all but the most hardcore users.

If Windows had ugly, stripped down desktops that were as nonfunctional
and impossible to work with as IceWM to replace its dopey interface, it
would scream as well as anything out there.

So you refuse to give up the eye candy, yet you complain when it slows
down your old laptop. Microsoft, KDE and Gnome have all found that
running a feature-rich GUI with lots of eye candy uses a fair amount
of system resources. Unless you can write a GUI that does what the
Microsoft, KDE or Gnome desktop does while being fast on your P166,
I suggest that you face the fact that the feature-rich GUIs use a lot
of system resources. "But Cap'n, she's goin' warp six as it is!
If we go any faster, those dilythium grytals canna' take the strain!"

I have been wanting to see linux run anywhere as near as quick and nimble
as Windows

You said before "as bloated as windwoes." Now you are saying that
Windows is faster. Which is it?

I have spent too much time with hdparms, setting up all kinds of
switches, turning off services, and recompiling kenels. It helps
a little, but I have never seen linux run appear as fast as OS/2,
or even windows2K on equal hardware. In the scheme of life, if
you spend fifty hours tweaking a linux distro, (snip)

You could have spent that 50 hours working at $10/hour and bought
a mac-mini for $500. [ http://www.apple.com/macmini/ ].
Or you could have bought a $500 1GHz laptop at wal-mart.
[ http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=3504708 ].

 

[Guy Macon]

Chris Carlen wrote:

How's the ease of use of hotplug with USB flash drives on Slack? Do you
have the most recent 10.1? I downloaded it and haven't used it yet.
What a waste of bandwidth, huh?

Don't know - I am running on a quad-processor Compaq 5500R - no USB.

Please note that Slackware 10.1 uses 2.4 by default, but
has a precompiled 2.6 kernel in /testing on CD 2. All the
reports that I have seen say that 2.6 runs fine. There may
be differences in hotplug USB flash drives support.

BTW, RUNT [ http://www.ncsu.edu/project/runt/ ] RUNT is Slackware
Linux designed to run off of a 128 MB or more USB pen drive.

 

[Guy Macon]

learning@learning.com wrote:

I don't think its so much that linux is a bad thing, but its supporters
really need some counseling.

"When anyone resorts to personal attacks, it is almost always
because they are losing an argument." -The Happy Heretic

 

In <115ntvapulfg5e6@corp.supernews.com>, on 04/12/05
at 04:31 PM, Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> said:

So you refuse to give up the eye candy, yet you complain when it slows
down your old laptop. Microsoft, KDE and Gnome have all found that
running a feature-rich GUI with lots of eye candy uses a fair amount of
system resources.

But if you remove the desktop from windows, it will scream as well. Its
not the OS that is bloated (although it is rather poorly knitted together,
its the GUI.) When its time to compare, you have to keep it apples and
apples. What makes windows slow and clunky is the desktop. The same thing
applies to linux. When you take away the"eye candy" GUI, linux picks up
dramatically. So the advantage of linux is not "its speed" but the fact
that you can run it without the GUI. Few want to do command line work, and
few OS's have such incredibly inane file naming conventions as *nux

You could have spent that 50 hours working at $10/hour and bought a

Neither of those run the CAD programs I am forced to use. Plus, where do
you live that there are no taxes, and no social security/medicaid
deductions?

JB

 

In <115nv226jd2vn4e@corp.supernews.com>, on 04/12/05
at 04:49 PM, Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> said:

learning@learning.com wrote:

I don't think its so much that linux is a bad thing, but its supporters
really need some counseling.

"When anyone resorts to personal attacks, it is almost always
because they are losing an argument." -The Happy Heretic

When people are unable to come up with their own rebuttal, and have to
resort to quoting someone else, it usually means that can't think for
themselves.
- Me

 

[Guy Macon]

Joerg wrote:

Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote,

You have to decide whether you want something that runs like Windows
or doesn't run like Windows. If it's like Windows, it's insecure.
If it's secure the user has to do some things in a non-windows
fashion, such as not running as root/administrator.

Thing is, I cannot decide. There is a certain number of programs I need
to run for business reasons. If there is only one that runs under
Windows and nothing else I am stuck. So is everybody else.

Actually, you aren't stuck and neither is anyone else. Look here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware
http://www.vmware.com/

 

[Joel Kolstad]

"Chris Carlen" <crcarleRemoveThis@BOGUSsandia.gov> wrote in message
news:d3gnbf02i44@news4.newsguy.com...

LTSpice qualifies. Works great, except for one minor problem. When I try
to print, circles don't make it through the PS interpreter. But the
application is actually quite stable.

It helps a lot that LTSpice is primarily the work of one guy (Mike
Engelhardt) who appears to be both a good programmer as well as someone who
cares deeply about the quality of the software he produces. The problem
with Windows, Word, etc. is that they're too big for any one person to code
primarily by themselves, and in my experience it's very difficult to get,
say, 10 programmers working on 1 program to be as bug-free as the "1
programmer/program" result.

Windows itself undoubtedly has thousands of programmers...

 

In <115o05tarbo4r5a@corp.supernews.com>, on 04/12/05
at 05:08 PM, Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> said:

Joerg wrote:

Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote,

You have to decide whether you want something that runs like Windows
or doesn't run like Windows. If it's like Windows, it's insecure.
If it's secure the user has to do some things in a non-windows
fashion, such as not running as root/administrator.

Thing is, I cannot decide. There is a certain number of programs I need
to run for business reasons. If there is only one that runs under
Windows and nothing else I am stuck. So is everybody else.

Actually, you aren't stuck and neither is anyone else. Look here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware
http://www.vmware.com/

What is this all about? Virtual PCs have been around for years, but you
still have to own and operate M$ windows to run it as a virtual machine.
All VMware is, along with its cousins and brothers, is another layer of
bloat to add to whatever you are running.

Call back when I can run Protel, PADS, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, etc without
using a M$ operating system.

JB