Originally posted by tsizKEIK
well my brothers PC with WIndows 2000 professional doesnt perform that well. actually it freezes all the time.
and 95% of my friends who have either windows XP or 2000 also have numerous of problems(eg incompatibilities) and crashes ALL the time.
most of the PCs ive seen need a format every 3-4 months cause problems keep on showing up more frequently.
i dont know, maybe Windows computers here in Greece have some sort of SARS virus and thats why they crash 
where do u guys live ? maybe i should give it a shot round ur neighbourhood
That may be true. Formating every 3-4 months, actually it does sound a lot like your friends are getting nailed by virus'? There are several of us here on this board that use Win2K and/or XP everyday (and are surrounded by people who do like wise) that have been churning for months/years without the level of problems that you and your friends have experienced. I haven't worked for a company that would stand for having to format every single one of their computers once a quarter to take care of those kinds of problems. Maybe this is an issue of home use vs corp use? Where in the corp the hardware configs tend to be much more standardized and people are generally discouraged from tinkering?
My personal experience is that OSX will hang/flake out on me about once or twice a week. By flaking out I mean the entire system will slow to a crawl and the only way out is to shut the system down (pull the plug). Now I do do some mucking about with wireless and I'm sure at least a few of my problems are related to that, but there are certainly times when I'm just working in Werd or browsing in Safari and things just seem to go weird. Now my Win2K box (personal) is no paragon of virtue either, but it's certainly no worse.
I think someone summarized earlier that neither OS is perfect from a stability standpoint (or even from a usabillity standpoint). OSX is a huge leap over OS9 and below. But NT (and it's derivatives) are huge leaps over 95 (and it's derivitives). Someone always knows somebody else who had a bad experience with whatever OS you choose. Since there are significantly more Wintel users out there, you are going to hear significantly more complaints, no surprise here.
Oh and to the issue of why M$ doesn't "innovate" as much as Apple. I think the answer is simple, they don't have to. Apple has to innovate to keep it's market share up. Apple is fighting the market more than it's fighting any competitor, innovation is crucial. M$ doesn't have that concern (at least not nearly to the extent that Apple does). Their focus is on controlling what they have, and innovation doesn't factor into that strategy as much as say DRM. M$ is more than happy to let Apple pave the way, why wouldn't they? Should they give props to Apple for originating ideas, well, thats open to interpretation. Should BMW acknowledge Alpha Romeo for originating the idea for variable valve timing (or Honda for making it available for the masses)?
Another thing to consider is that corps don't care about innovation anyway. Your average home user is wowed by iLife, but your average corp user doesn't give a flip. They want a
reasonably stable OS with the apps they need (word processing, db, spreadsheet, presentation, email) and a way to administer these boxes as simply as possible. Is your average IT guy going to choose an OS because it has hardware accelerated 3d icons, nope. Remember, Apple can focus on home users and content providers, and provide innovations that appeal to those groups. M$ is trying to woo the same group PLUS button down corps, server room IT guys, and pretty much everyone else, so the payoff of such "innovation" isn't the same for them.
