> on a disk, go to a friend being sure you'll find the same Windows and Word
> there. The worst I could imagine is this:

Not every one will have Word, of course. And he might have a different
version of Windows. There are some differences between the versions, but
they don't really impact this situation. Of course, there are different
versions of Word, and that may impose a problem. 

At least with Linux, I have a better chance at getting my data read,
especially if it came from another Unix system. It's kind of hard to
stick a 4mm DAT into a Windows box and have anything read.

> Windows - 40%
> Linux - 30%
> MacOS - 10%
> BeOS - 5%
> Solaris - 5%
> Other - 5%

If you're referring to servers, I don't think the percentages are close. I
would suspect that Solaris, HP_UX, and other versions of Unix up around the
40% range if not more. NT probably has some good showing as well. BeOS is not
really used at all, and MacOS is probably nonexistent.

> the PCs are there. Each time I go to repair a PC, I'm almost sure what I'll
> see there.

Cross-linked clusters, broken FATs, etc. :)

Things have improved somewhat, but I remember tech support stories where 
the support people had to do keystroke edit sessions by voice to the client
because the only editor they could assume that was on the system was 'edlin'.
Nowadays, you could assume Windows users generally have Notepad. But you 
simply can'[ make that same assumption about Word. And back in the DOS
days, almost every person's setup was different.

> Also, I'd like to add that I hate to buy PC with preinstalled software. When
> I got one with preinstalled Windows (what I used then), the first thing I

Don't buy PCs. Assemble them from known parts that work well with each other.

> Solver
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David E. Fox                              Thanks for letting me
[EMAIL PROTECTED]                            change magnetic patterns
[EMAIL PROTECTED]               on your hard disk.
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