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Well, within a week, my pc started shutting down and I even saw a few blue windows where IU was warned of problems. I immediately uninstalled safari and never had a problem again.

So the problem of Safari also seems to effect 64-bit windows that run Vista, at least it did for me. So to me this is nothing new.

I've been involved with the development, testing and installation
of operating systems for well over 45 years.
starting with OS/MVT through z/OS and
all flavors of Unix at Bell Labs
One of the fundamental rules of an operating systems is
that it can not be taken down by any application !
Any robust op/sys should be able to shed a rogue application program.
If any application program is able to crash an "operating system",
the "operating system" has fundamental flaws.
Complete systems and integration testing starting
at the module level should have taken place.
Microsoft system 7 and 8 are nothing
but variations on Windows NT.
Windows NT
I would recommend a robust op/sys such any variant of *nix
I defenestrated in 2002 switching to Mac OS X.
A robust Unix with the User Friendly interface of Apple.
Since the advent of Intel Mac there is no reason not to.

There’s 2 great reasons not to get Macs:
1 - you can buy 2 solid PCs for the price of a Mac
2 - all the software is written for Windows. Yeah sure Mac can pretend to be Windows, but good luck getting support if there’s a problem, the companies support Windows, not pretending to be Windows.

Yeah Windows has problems. Whatever. It’s fast, it’s smooth, it’s actually pretty stable (I haven’t seen a blue screen in years), it’s cheap (if you’re at all connected to the industry it’s free legally), and there’s tons of software available. Sure you don’t get to be snooty about your OS, but only a pathetic loser takes pride in the OS on their computer anyway, and you wants to be one of them. Take the money you save buying a PC and go to the liquor store and learn to be snooty about something cool like scotch.

"One of the fundamental rules of an operating systems is that it can not be taken down by any application ! Any robust op/sys should be able to shed a rogue application program."

I'll never be a developer but I've done some loading Windows to new boxes and old for many years, my gig is lab admin. I like the way your big old brain works. Nobody outside the compound should be able to walk in and torch the fort. That is not an assident from the intruder, that is a flaw in the OS. I prefer Windows because of my time with it, but I still get POd from time to time. Apple gives me the redass too, every time I use it.

Stay safe FReeper.

Very good points all.

Only thing that bothers me on FreeRepublic computer tech threads is the ignorance of posters about the purpose and proper function of an Operating System. The early CP/M MS-PC/DOS then Win9x and finally the WinNT family of “operating systems” have conditioned many PC users to system crashes. These crashes may have been due to direct hardware access in the early DOS days, to poorly written drivers which operated in kernel space/Ring 0 or poorly validated system calls. Microsoft is trying to clean up the kernel space/user space mess from past Win32 APIs...

As you stated, an application should never be able to crash a properly designed privileged operating system. While Intel does a good job with maintaining the x86 and and forwarding the current and future x64 spec, as long as the Ring transition costs remain as is, Microsoft will always be tempted to let too much code run (or call) Ring 0...

Seems one can never convince the technically ignorant because their computer company allegiances prevail over reason. This Win32 HTML kernel bug being a prime example.

dvwjr