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Exactly if he is acting compulsive and against his best interests with the Internet it isn't the big bad Internet that is the problem the problem is control which I would argue is more important and running away from the issue won't help.

I would suggest that instead of pulling the plus, which would also deny him many useful things like access to maps, government websites, email, etc he use a timer, either one built into his router or here are some free ones to choose from. If he pays attention to the timer and actually sticks with it he won't have time to pisslefart all over the Internet and will have to use his limited time wisely.

So I think he simply is going about the problem all wrong. Being able to access the Internet from a coffeehouse won't make him waste less time, hell just hang out there if he really does have a problem. But by having a timer one can get used to having a set time to get what one wants accomplished done and will be more helpful. When my nephews first started playing MMOs I set a 2 hour time limit on their router so they couldn't wear themselves out and now without the timer they typically use around 2 hours a night, one hour for email and YouTube and an hour on their games.

Which GPU? Which version of Win7 x64? The reason I ask is reading your post I decided to "press my luck" again (BTW I recommend Quick Restore Maker before updating drivers. The also have an excellent FixWin and Wintweaker tools at the bottom of the page for Win7) and installed the latest update to 9.12 on Windows 7 HP x64, along with the latest transcoder for same.

After reading your post I expected a big problem, but....well nothing happened. It all "just worked", even my ATI USB Capture card. Which BTW if you want a good USB card for Win7 media center keep an eye out on Woot! for the ATI 600 USB. It works great and gives me a good picture on cable.

So it must be a specific set of software/hardware causing the error, which happens to every manufacturer from time to time. I mean when you think about the myriad of software/hardware combos you can come up with in Windows it is just staggering. What kind of IGP do you have? As I have found that sometimes Intel or Nvidia IGPs can cause trouble with an ATI discrete card, which is why I use Drivercleaner whenever I'm adding a new card. But in this case I just ran the .exe and everything was golden, didn't even need a reboot.

In case it matters this is on an AMD 925 quad, with a 780VM board and a 4650HD Gigabyte card. But I have found as long as one stays off the "bleeding edge" of GPUs the drivers from both companies tend to be pretty stable. I am sticking with AMD because of the bang for the buck and the fact that I don't trust Nvidia after the bad solder fiasco,but I haven't seen any real problems with either companies drivers in a long time. These kids don't know what hassle is until they have dealt with ATI and Nvidia Win9x drivers. Boy now there was an unstable mess!

But it doesn't sound like it'll make disc images, does it? I frankly couldn't give a shit about backing up my files, as I have them stored on at least 2 drives and the important ones also have off-site backups. What I do NOT want to have to do is spend hours reinstalling and setting everything back up the way i like it.

I have been using a really nice software from Paragon* that does pretty much anything you'd want to do with a disk, along with the Windows 7 built in disk imaging, so I've been having good luck so far in that regard, but the LAST thing I want is to have my images borked by some new sector size BS. Not to mention i dual boot XP and Win7 so i have no idea if having both XP and 7 on the same drive will cause problems. Does anybody know if using the WD XP tool will slow down or Bork Win7?

*-For those that don't want to pay the $35, which it is WELL WORTH BTW, you can keep an eye out on Giveaway of the day as Paragon is really good about placing their tools on there when a new version comes out. Between that and Primewares (great site, lousy name) and its excellent freeware only search engine you can pretty much completely outfit a new PC for zero $. But for disk imaging I've found you really can't go wrong with paragon. Really solid software IMHO.

All you have to do is put it in a .reg file first, which with notepad is easy peasy to cook up. then from CLI here is the command - regedit /s yourfile.reg. See? Not real hard, alothough why you would want to go to the trouble of editing from CLI when you have a nice little GUI is beyond me.

if you want a far more full featured regedit utility let your old pay da feet point you to Tuneup Utilities 2007 which you can use that free serial provided by the Tuneup guys, who give away their old versions hoping you'll by the new (which I did, and its quite nice) but the 07 version has a full set of nice utilities, including a MUCH better registry editor, along with a nice safe reg cleaner, temp cleaner, hell you can even change the XP boot screens if that makes you happy. Their reg editor does wildcards, allows you to only search specific areas or only for certain key types if you like, just an all around nicer experience than regedit. Try it, I'll bet you like it. Oh and you can just drag the program folder to a flashdrive and it makes a nice portable app too.

As usual when you want anything decent you have to use third party tools, as MSFT is usually piss poor in that area. For backups using Shadow Copy I would recommend Macrium Reflect. It is free, one installer for 32/64 and works on every MSFT OS from XP on up, you can image the drive to just about anything, HDD, USB, network, comes with the option to make a nice Linux based GUI rescue CD, etc.

Why MSFT always seems to be piss poor on basic tools I have no idea, but with so much freeware* out there it is nearly always better to just forget about anything MSFT builds in anyway.

*- this site has 36,000+ freeware apps and one of the best search tools I have ever seen. Simply type what you need an app to do and they will find you a freeware app that does it. It is a great resource for when you come across that peculiar little specific job that you need a free app to do quickly. Nearly all of the repair and maintenance tools I use daily come from Primewares. Truly a handy site to have in your bookmarks.

Actually the ink carts are $10 a refill at the Walgreen's less than a block from my house, so that ain't a problem anymore. As for why the game sucked more on Windows, you really should try the Tuneup Utilies that I linked to, as a lot of problems with Windows is all the cruft that tends to build up in it. that is one of the things I like about Tuneup Utilities, as you can just have it do "one click maintainence" at system start and it will automatically clean the cruft at bootup.

There are also DirectX uninstallers out there, as I have found sometimes Dx gets borked and a reinstall will fix it right up. Again why MSFT doesn't build a tool for such a logical thing, who knows. But for freeware to do a specific job you really can't beat Primewares which is nothing but freeware (over 26,000 at last count) and has an excellent Google style search engine built in, where you just type what you need the tool to do and primewares finds you a free tool that does the job. makes working on Windows a HELL of a lot easier.

But like I said, both Linux and Windows have their place. The problem I think with linux is it has been taken over by the "source code or nothing!" militants, which I truly believe are hamstringing Linux adoption. There is NO reason why a company shouldn't be able to just put a "Linux 32/64" folder on their driver CD and be done with it. And I'm willing to bet my soon to be worthless last dollar that if Linux had a stable ABI that we would see devices all over the place with a little fat penguin right alongside the Win and Apple logos.

But sadly this will never happen, as the "source code or nothing!" zealots like RMS will never let it happen, as they would rather have Linux rot in obscurity and have a "pure" OS, than to allow binary drivers without having to jump through flaming hoops. That cap card? The driver from 2001 still works on a fully patched XP SP3 nearly 9 years later. Can Linux use a driver from 9 years ago with modification on a stock box? Nope, because everything from the kernel up is like the shifting sands. Which is why it is good in embedded, where the hardware and OS is never gonna change, or in servers where companies like HP spend millions to make sure their hardware "just works". But in desktops? I have a sinking feeling that in 2015 when Windows 8 is getting ready to roll out we'll hear the same "this year is the year of Linux on the desktop!" and it won't be any more true then than it is now.

And it is truly a damned shame, as with a stable ABI so Joe Average could just "look for the fat penguin" at Walmart when buying devices I think Linux could have already passed Mac and be well on its way to giving MSFT some real competition for once. And I think it really is a damned shame, as Linux has a nice looking OS, with lots of cool features. But as we have seen time and time again zealots don't do anything but get more militant with time, which is why RMS himself only uses a uber rare Loongson ARM based netbook, as that was the only device he could find that fit his militant definition of "free". It is a shame too, because if it wasn't such a flaming hell trying to get devices to work without researching your living ass off I'd have Linux boxes right beside my Windows models for sale. But until my customers can walk into Walmart and grab a device without spending hours on a forums trying to find out if "device foo rev a" is supported or not, I'm afraid I'll have to stick with MSFT.

Let your old pal da feet come to the rescue. Now personally I prefer Tuneup Utilities 07 as it does a lot more than clean up bad uninstalls, like autoclean the temp folders and registry if you like, but if all you want is to clean out a bad uninstall then Revo is the tool to use. Like I said MSFT has always been piss poor at building in maintenance tools, but I have to wonder how much of that is because of their being busted as a monopoly and third parties having a fit if they bundle anything. After the bit with the browser I'm shocked the third party notepad replacements haven't demanded notepad be removed.

So there is NO need to panic, and there is rarely if ever a need to reinstall, you just have to use a third party tool. That is the one thing I'll gladly give Linux, all the built in tools are nice. Too bad it is like a living nightmare to get many pieces of hardware going, like God Help you if you have a Lexmark printer or a broadcom wireless (which I have both) as you will be chunking the device before ever getting it to work in Linux. That is why I hate that "oh, just use a live CD and switch to Linux" bullshit, because it is bullshit. Linux, like Mac, means you better have the "right" hardware or you are boned. Sure if you have a 5+ year old desktop it'll probably work, because it is so damned old the drivers have been reverse engineered by now, that is if the kernel guys didn't drop support like I heard they did for the old Marvel SATA controllers, but anything new? Yeah, good luck with that.

I have tried a dozen live CDs and have yet to have all my hardware working even once. There is always something-sound,wireless (pretty much everytime) video, USB printer, something. And if it don't work out of the box it is "BWA HA HA HA HA!" time, as welcome to the hell of a 1000 cuts, where hours will be spent putting in arcane Unix commands that never seem to work. And that is supposed to be better than dealing with the reg? Bleech!

Like I said, for servers where hardware is just about all supported? yeah Linux is great there. Embedded and cells where every byte counts? You can really cut down Linux to run on anything. But home desktops with the myriad of funky ass Chinese hardware? Really not so good there. If my choices are spending days in Bash trying to get my wireless to work, or the 'clicky clicky and reboot" of the reg, I'll take the reg any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Like I said, it is like a hammer and a screwdriver, both have their place. Linux on the server, Windows on the desktop. and before anybody says "but...they won't give us the specs!" welcome to the real world pal, most won't. And like my customers I don't care WHY it don't work, I just care that it doesn't do what it is supposed to.

I have run into exactly ONE device where I couldn't get drivers, and that was for an old cap card that the company went out of business years ago. Boot into XP32 and it works fine (BTW no the card don't work in Linux x64 either) and compare that to Linux, where I have yet to get any of my new desktops to work out of the box, yeah that makes a BIG difference. I have only so many hours in the day and my time is money so I have NO intention of spending a couple of days in Bash, only to have to do it all over again come the next kernel update. No thanks, I'll stick to the reg.

I have found by sticking with Ridata, which seems to be the best of the "cheapo" media IMHO, I rarely have any troubles at all for those less than three years old, in fact I rarely have trouble with the Ridata DVDs at all since I stick them on 50 pack spindles in a cool dry cabinet.

Anyway I have a 733MHz Compaq deskpro EN SFF that is one of about a dozen I got when the school upgraded their secretaries in 05. Since I use the SFF as a monitor riser it is sitting right in front of me at all times. To run a check I simply pick out a 50 pack and feed them to the 733MHz, flipping over to check the results and load the next disc. I have found using this method I can get a 50 pack checked in about an hour and a half while I am surfing Slashdot. Any that are found to have errors I use Elprime on my AMD 7550 with 4Gb of RAM and XP X64 to recover the media to a folder. Then I take a quick look and chunk anything that isn't worth having (like say an old version of Firefox) and then reburn the disc. Since I have a circa 2000 Win2K pro box that I use for a Nettop(which is what I am typing this on) I can devote the full resources of the 7550 to recovery, thus speeding recovery time.

So using this method I can go through the 7 or so spindles I have in about a week and a half of spare time. Since I rarely have any trouble with those less than 3 years I can cut about half of those out and thus save even more time. For anything important, like disc images I have those split in 4Gb chunks and burn those in duplicate with a recovery record. So far the only real PITA with my system is when I made the move to XP X64 the old disc cataloging software I was using totally crapped out on me so I am having to rescan my discs using a pair of freeware disc catalog tools, so I won't have to deal with this problem again. But since with a catalog you only need the disc in long enough to be scanned I have to switch back and forth more.

Since both of my new catalog softwares use standard formats instead of the proprietary crap the last one did (one uses XML and the other uses IIRC OO.o Dbase) I will be able to switch to another easily and having two means if one craps out I still have the other. But all in all I have been using this system for many years and it seems to work. I was even able to quickly find my mom's "must have" Bounce Out game that she bought in 2002 in less than a minute after her favorite PC (It was a Gateway Astro, and I know they suck, but she refused to let go of it or her AoE I) died. if you go to Primewares (bad name, great site) they have nothing but freeware programs, including dozens that will check discs and catalog them for you. It has the best search engine for freeware ever IMHO, that all you do is type in what you need the program to do, and they find one for you.

Anyway I hope this explains my system, and sorry about the length. But working PC repair I know the importance of backups and many folks here just don't have the money or time to deal with USB drives. My system is cheap and reliable and by keeping the OSes on smaller partitions and keeping games and vids on a separate partition I am about to do a full backup of my Win2K, WinXP32, and WinXP64 on 10 discs counting an extra copy per OS. I then keep a copy at my mom's place, and keep a copy of the data for the whole family here. That way in case of fire or other disaster I will only lose what came after the last backup, which is monthly for the OS and weekly for my personal data. At $0.20 a disc for Ridata DVDs it is a really cheap way to do backups and since I only backup new content it really doesn't take much after the initial backup. Again sorry for the length and I hope this explains how I use DVDs for "backup on the cheap" without having to waste a lot of time/effort.

Actually I've found you can get most of that speed back by using a really good registry cleaner like the one built into tuneup utilities. This is the freeware full version of the 2k7 edition, but if you like it I would suggest buying the 2K9 as it is even nicer.

That said i would also recommend monthly disc imaging which will give you a way to roll back effectively if you end up with an app that leaves behind a bunch of crap. And of course a disc image of a clean install with all drivers and patches and basic apps is certainly less time consuming than having to deal with a yearly clean install. After restoring from the clean image you can then do the full patches using something like autopatcher with Multiset taking care of automating any new "must have" software.

I have found with these little tricks you can greatly extend the life of your Windows OS without the need to do a clean install. By using these tricks along with keeping my data on a separate drive so I don't have to worry about backups before rollbacks I have been using the same install of Win2K that I am typing this on since 2000 when it replaced WinME(EEEK!) and simply haven't had to deal with Windows rot. I simply roll back when I have a nasty uninstaller and use Tuneup to clean out any junk registry entries and this old workhorse still makes a good Nettop even after all these years. And it is certainly easier than doing a yearly reinstall.

But let us be honest here: How does Theora compare with the ease of use and picture quality of H.264? My 15 year old makes his own H.264 .flv files to upload to Youtube. Didn't need any help from me either. He just went to Primewares, which has a lousy name but it is one of the best freeware site for Windows IMHO, types "flv converter" into the search box, and voila! He found a nice simple GUI based decoder that lets him turn the videos he makes into .flv in H.264 and upload them to Youtube.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying this, but what the hell, I got Karma to burn. The problem with many of the open formats like Matroska and Ogg/Theora, is the same problem I have found with Linux in general. Way too damned much reliance on CLI. You can find tons of great conversion tools in CLI that'll frankly do everything but cook your breakfast in the morning if you are good at or want to learn CLI, but that means you have just removed 95% of your audience and guaranteed you'll stay a niche, because I can tell you that after way too many years in Windows sales/repair that a good 95% of the customers don't even know CLI EXISTS, and even fewer want to have anything to do with it.

I know saying this will piss off a LOT of Open Source guys, but it is true: CLI HAS to die! While you can have CLI as a compliment to the GUI, sadly way too many things in Open Source pretty much the ONLY way to get anything done is CLI. Let's look at the above site, which is the main one I use for finding freeware when I have a specific job to do. Here is the search results when I type in flv converter, here is Theora converter, and Matroska converter. For flv I have 61 to choose from, for Theora I have exactly one that will read but NOT write the format, and for Matroska? A big fat zero. Hell I spent a day last year looking for free Matroska converters and couldn't find a single simple converter to change Matroska to the .avi that my DVD player used that wasn't for pay, and even those sucked compared to the .avi and .mpg converters out there. Tons of .CLI based converters, not that I have the time nor the desire to learn a bunch of CLI commands just to convert from format A to B.

Open Source guys seem to think because they like CLI and find it easy that others will too, but I have found in fact the opposite is true. Hell even as a repair guy who knows his way around a CLI I just ain't got the hours in the day to waste futzing around with a CLI for something that should have an easy to use GUI. Do you think my 15 year old would have a chance with a CLI based converter? or my customers? If Open Source guys want to know why .flv is everywhere it is because ANYBODY can make a .flv file. Even my mother could spend a whole five minutes in Google and find a butt simple video converter that will output .flv from any format. If you want to push something to the masses then CLI HAS TO die, okay? No CLI, all GUI. Because most have never used a CLI, most have no desire whatsoever to ever learn a CLI, and most would look at it as some primitive throwback to DOS if you even showed them a CLI prompt.

So accept that CLI has to die, just as it has on Mac and Windows. Make the GUI FIRST, and make sure it is simple and reliable and THEN you can start pushing the format to those like my 15 year old. Because until then they are gonna stick with what works, and that is H.264 in .flv and .avi.

But let us be honest here: How does Theora compare with the ease of use and picture quality of H.264? My 15 year old makes his own H.264 .flv files to upload to Youtube. Didn't need any help from me either. He just went to Primewares, which has a lousy name but it is one of the best freeware site for Windows IMHO, types "flv converter" into the search box, and voila! He found a nice simple GUI based decoder that lets him turn the videos he makes into .flv in H.264 and upload them to Youtube.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying this, but what the hell, I got Karma to burn. The problem with many of the open formats like Matroska and Ogg/Theora, is the same problem I have found with Linux in general. Way too damned much reliance on CLI. You can find tons of great conversion tools in CLI that'll frankly do everything but cook your breakfast in the morning if you are good at or want to learn CLI, but that means you have just removed 95% of your audience and guaranteed you'll stay a niche, because I can tell you that after way too many years in Windows sales/repair that a good 95% of the customers don't even know CLI EXISTS, and even fewer want to have anything to do with it.

I know saying this will piss off a LOT of Open Source guys, but it is true: CLI HAS to die! While you can have CLI as a compliment to the GUI, sadly way too many things in Open Source pretty much the ONLY way to get anything done is CLI. Let's look at the above site, which is the main one I use for finding freeware when I have a specific job to do. Here is the search results when I type in flv converter, here is Theora converter, and Matroska converter. For flv I have 61 to choose from, for Theora I have exactly one that will read but NOT write the format, and for Matroska? A big fat zero. Hell I spent a day last year looking for free Matroska converters and couldn't find a single simple converter to change Matroska to the .avi that my DVD player used that wasn't for pay, and even those sucked compared to the .avi and .mpg converters out there. Tons of .CLI based converters, not that I have the time nor the desire to learn a bunch of CLI commands just to convert from format A to B.

Open Source guys seem to think because they like CLI and find it easy that others will too, but I have found in fact the opposite is true. Hell even as a repair guy who knows his way around a CLI I just ain't got the hours in the day to waste futzing around with a CLI for something that should have an easy to use GUI. Do you think my 15 year old would have a chance with a CLI based converter? or my customers? If Open Source guys want to know why .flv is everywhere it is because ANYBODY can make a .flv file. Even my mother could spend a whole five minutes in Google and find a butt simple video converter that will output .flv from any format. If you want to push something to the masses then CLI HAS TO die, okay? No CLI, all GUI. Because most have never used a CLI, most have no desire whatsoever to ever learn a CLI, and most would look at it as some primitive throwback to DOS if you even showed them a CLI prompt.

So accept that CLI has to die, just as it has on Mac and Windows. Make the GUI FIRST, and make sure it is simple and reliable and THEN you can start pushing the format to those like my 15 year old. Because until then they are gonna stick with what works, and that is H.264 in .flv and .avi.

But let us be honest here: How does Theora compare with the ease of use and picture quality of H.264? My 15 year old makes his own H.264 .flv files to upload to Youtube. Didn't need any help from me either. He just went to Primewares, which has a lousy name but it is one of the best freeware site for Windows IMHO, types "flv converter" into the search box, and voila! He found a nice simple GUI based decoder that lets him turn the videos he makes into .flv in H.264 and upload them to Youtube.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying this, but what the hell, I got Karma to burn. The problem with many of the open formats like Matroska and Ogg/Theora, is the same problem I have found with Linux in general. Way too damned much reliance on CLI. You can find tons of great conversion tools in CLI that'll frankly do everything but cook your breakfast in the morning if you are good at or want to learn CLI, but that means you have just removed 95% of your audience and guaranteed you'll stay a niche, because I can tell you that after way too many years in Windows sales/repair that a good 95% of the customers don't even know CLI EXISTS, and even fewer want to have anything to do with it.

I know saying this will piss off a LOT of Open Source guys, but it is true: CLI HAS to die! While you can have CLI as a compliment to the GUI, sadly way too many things in Open Source pretty much the ONLY way to get anything done is CLI. Let's look at the above site, which is the main one I use for finding freeware when I have a specific job to do. Here is the search results when I type in flv converter, here is Theora converter, and Matroska converter. For flv I have 61 to choose from, for Theora I have exactly one that will read but NOT write the format, and for Matroska? A big fat zero. Hell I spent a day last year looking for free Matroska converters and couldn't find a single simple converter to change Matroska to the .avi that my DVD player used that wasn't for pay, and even those sucked compared to the .avi and .mpg converters out there. Tons of .CLI based converters, not that I have the time nor the desire to learn a bunch of CLI commands just to convert from format A to B.

Open Source guys seem to think because they like CLI and find it easy that others will too, but I have found in fact the opposite is true. Hell even as a repair guy who knows his way around a CLI I just ain't got the hours in the day to waste futzing around with a CLI for something that should have an easy to use GUI. Do you think my 15 year old would have a chance with a CLI based converter? or my customers? If Open Source guys want to know why .flv is everywhere it is because ANYBODY can make a .flv file. Even my mother could spend a whole five minutes in Google and find a butt simple video converter that will output .flv from any format. If you want to push something to the masses then CLI HAS TO die, okay? No CLI, all GUI. Because most have never used a CLI, most have no desire whatsoever to ever learn a CLI, and most would look at it as some primitive throwback to DOS if you even showed them a CLI prompt.

So accept that CLI has to die, just as it has on Mac and Windows. Make the GUI FIRST, and make sure it is simple and reliable and THEN you can start pushing the format to those like my 15 year old. Because until then they are gonna stick with what works, and that is H.264 in .flv and .avi.

But let us be honest here: How does Theora compare with the ease of use and picture quality of H.264? My 15 year old makes his own H.264 .flv files to upload to Youtube. Didn't need any help from me either. He just went to Primewares, which has a lousy name but it is one of the best freeware site for Windows IMHO, types "flv converter" into the search box, and voila! He found a nice simple GUI based decoder that lets him turn the videos he makes into .flv in H.264 and upload them to Youtube.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying this, but what the hell, I got Karma to burn. The problem with many of the open formats like Matroska and Ogg/Theora, is the same problem I have found with Linux in general. Way too damned much reliance on CLI. You can find tons of great conversion tools in CLI that'll frankly do everything but cook your breakfast in the morning if you are good at or want to learn CLI, but that means you have just removed 95% of your audience and guaranteed you'll stay a niche, because I can tell you that after way too many years in Windows sales/repair that a good 95% of the customers don't even know CLI EXISTS, and even fewer want to have anything to do with it.

I know saying this will piss off a LOT of Open Source guys, but it is true: CLI HAS to die! While you can have CLI as a compliment to the GUI, sadly way too many things in Open Source pretty much the ONLY way to get anything done is CLI. Let's look at the above site, which is the main one I use for finding freeware when I have a specific job to do. Here is the search results when I type in flv converter, here is Theora converter, and Matroska converter. For flv I have 61 to choose from, for Theora I have exactly one that will read but NOT write the format, and for Matroska? A big fat zero. Hell I spent a day last year looking for free Matroska converters and couldn't find a single simple converter to change Matroska to the .avi that my DVD player used that wasn't for pay, and even those sucked compared to the .avi and .mpg converters out there. Tons of .CLI based converters, not that I have the time nor the desire to learn a bunch of CLI commands just to convert from format A to B.

Open Source guys seem to think because they like CLI and find it easy that others will too, but I have found in fact the opposite is true. Hell even as a repair guy who knows his way around a CLI I just ain't got the hours in the day to waste futzing around with a CLI for something that should have an easy to use GUI. Do you think my 15 year old would have a chance with a CLI based converter? or my customers? If Open Source guys want to know why .flv is everywhere it is because ANYBODY can make a .flv file. Even my mother could spend a whole five minutes in Google and find a butt simple video converter that will output .flv from any format. If you want to push something to the masses then CLI HAS TO die, okay? No CLI, all GUI. Because most have never used a CLI, most have no desire whatsoever to ever learn a CLI, and most would look at it as some primitive throwback to DOS if you even showed them a CLI prompt.

So accept that CLI has to die, just as it has on Mac and Windows. Make the GUI FIRST, and make sure it is simple and reliable and THEN you can start pushing the format to those like my 15 year old. Because until then they are gonna stick with what works, and that is H.264 in .flv and .avi.

I'm afraid I have to agree with you. Every time I hear of some "big new thing" coming out in Linux i download the latest Kubuntu or PCLOS and after 5 hours of BS and 3 or more major show stoppers I just have to give up. Simple things like my printer, my cheapo analog capture card(those Philips chips have been out since Win3.11! WTF is the deal?) and 3d on my Nvidia or ATI cards is just one giant headache after another. And I have to agree about the freeware, when I can go to primewares(bad name but GREAT freeware site) and simply type in what I want the program to do and it finds me a dozen or more freeware apps with screenshots that makes it simple to find what I need, having to deal with Apt Get or Synaptic just feels like a giant step backward. It is a shame that Xandros is so hated by the Linux community, as Xandros Business and Click n' Run is the closest to "it just works" in the Linux world. It managed to set up my laptop, complete with Wifi, right out of the box. But even it couldn't allow me to actually print with my Lexmark all in one, so back to 2K/XP I went.

Now as for XP pricing, while I do agree that it is too damned high for its age, the reason the OEMs get it so much cheaper is the OEM agreement makes them take over service from MSFT. By dropping support for all those "how do I print?" types MSFT saves a good chunk of money and passes that on to the OEMs. That is why I always buy system builder or OEM copies of Windows, because I have never dealt with MSFT support and don't ever plan to. After dealing with Dell and even worse Hughes Satnet script monkies you couldn't pay me enough to go through that again. But considering the age XP needs to be $50 for Home and $80 for pro. Those prices would cause XP piracy to drop right off the map, because $139 for a nearly decade old OS is frankly nuts.

But as I said, the simple fact that folks are willing to pay good money for a nearly decade old OS rather than have "free as in beer and freedom" Linux tells me that Linux truly has a long ways to go if they actually want to take desktop marketshare. Personally I agree with the Red Hat CEO that Linux developers shouldn't even bother. The margins suck on desktops, the support calls are a lot more numerous as you have uneducated users, it frankly is a PITA market. Servers are where the money is, where the educated users are, where those nice support contracts are. Why anyone would WANT to deal with the huge number of PITA Windows users is frankly beyond me. If I didn't get paid good money to deal with them I would avoid them like the clap. It is frankly support hell. But until CLI and text heavy interfaces are gone I honestly don't think Linux will have to worry about it. Because ATM Linux pretty much requires CLI skills and that is a deal breaker for 99% of the population. Sorry Linux guys, but dealing with the public I'm just calling it as I see it. Most Windows users are frankly too dangerous for the power that CLI brings. Sorry.

That's kinda funny, as I have been using this install of XP Pro for years, and I must have a good 100+ programs on it, and yet when I just checked the firewall exceptions list the only things I found were the programs that had asked me. Are you sure that you aren't talking XP SP2? Because I noticed the firewall seems to have gotten better with SP3.

Now with SP2 I would occasionally find MSFT products that added themselves to the list, but since SP3 I haven't had any try that stunt and I install software pretty much all the time. New games, old games, trialware, when they have a good app at giveawayoftheday or when I need a freeware app to do a specific job I snatch one at Primewares(formerly freeware world team) and with all this software I haven't had a single exception to the firewall list. So unless there is a way to bypass the firewall completely or it only happens with a few third party apps I just haven't seen it. And my machines are admin so if it was going to happen surely it would happen to me. Maybe it is just Photoshop?