The latest in the MS "Trusted Computing Initiative".
Ahhh, the beauty of ".net" and passport.
Even the pre-launch hype, years ago, made me cringe.
Fortunately they have not had the widespread adoption they expected!
Have a look at
http://www.linux.org/dist/
I like Slackware personally. (suits me fine :-)
Your mileage may vary.
For folks who haven't tried Linux, Knoppix gets my vote as an ideal distribution. Virtually anyone can figure out how to make a bootable live cd. They then can see if they like it or not by just booting the cd.
If you don't like it, fine, you aren't out anything except a cd and a few minutes of your time (and six hundred megabytes of bandwidth.) Knoppix doesn't modify your system unless you explicitly make it do so.
As to Palladium/TCI/et al, well, we can all see how much we can trust Microsoft with our money and passports. ;-)
I am sorry for the folks that are locked out -- I hope it isn't permanent. Even the five days mentioned on the board is double plus ungood. I looked for a few minutes at the Microsoft board, and it's hard not to feel sympathy for folks' plights; one man is on his honeymoon and needs access to funds; others are trying to run their businesses and close out the month.
Microsoft has really shot themselves in the foot with this one.