[uncommonsense]

"Do they use Microsoft OSes in government?"

Yes, mostly XP on the desktop that's long been sunset by Microsoft. They don't do maintenance patches anymore (our illustrious fedgov is probably paying MSFT $millions to keep patching security holes to XP).

[Lexinom]

Makes perfect sense. XP was the last really stable, fast, reliable Windows (with a due hat tip to Windows 7 in second place.)

Gov't employees probably lack the gumption and intellectual horsepower to move to Ubuntu or XUbuntu...