>To me, it looks like the game is played: Buy MS OS--whatever the latest >version. Use all MS products on it (browsers, email programs, >Office). Repeat about every 3 years.
I'm not sure this is a fair analysis, Sue. As I mentioned earlier, I'm still using, with Vista, software that was written decades ago, some of it for DOS. Certainly XP ran almost everything that worked with earlier versions of Windows. There was virtually no XP-only software until fairly recently, when a tipping point was reached: XP's market share got to the point where software could use features that are only in XP and still sell well enough to make a profit. Now, Vista is a bit different. Some older software won't run. That is mostly (and I do say "mostly") due to the enhanced security: the software is trying to do things that the security changes in Vista won't allow. But even so, MOST software does work fine. Certainly it's easy to use non-MS products in the categories you mentioned: Firefox, Eudora, and Open Office or Corel Office all work fine (I'm not sure what problems you're referring to with Eudora--the Eudora people say there are none). I'll tell you how -I- think the game is played: Slam MS mercilessly (and justifiably) for XP vulnerabilities. Then slam MS for fixing them in Vista because older software that did unsafe things isn't allowed to run any more. Best, Chris ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
