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You got that right, cat (or may I call you revolting?)

The changes also affect Microsoft's plan to make the next version of its Office software work only on Longhorn. The new plans call for that Office package to work on previous versions of Windows as well.

Hence the new Operating System every few years. They not only get to sell us a new OS, but if they do it right, we ultimately have to rebuy all our software to accomodate. Never mind that all these things already do more or less what we want them to, and nobody's crying out for features that couldn't be accomplished by a patch or two.

They'd better hurry up! All those XP and 2000 versions of the operating system software are wearing out with use and pretty soon won't be able to run. Why, computers need a brand new model of the OS every year or so!

You think you're being funny, but it's truly frightening if you realize that this really is the case... at least with Microsoft.

Windows is a house of cards. Everyone must accept that up front. It is fragile and making any changes to it cuts down on it's reliability. Adding applications software to it cuts down on its stability.

How many REQUIRED patches have been released for Windows XP since it was introduced? For every one you apply you add a delta away from stability and supportbility. How many patches and updates have there been to the applications on a typical system? Every one of them moves that application and the system away from a stable state.

I apply all critical security patches from Microsoft to my OS and applications. I do this because everyone soon knows about the flaws from newsgroups and news stories and exploits get pumped out by script kiddies and expert crackers alike. The odds are good that one PC won't be a problem. I'm responsible for 35,000 PCs worldwide. If just 1% of them get hit it costs us millions. I only update other applications if I run into a problem. I routinely reformat and reinstall my system from scratch about every 3 months (half the time that's because I've got new hardware).

Any Microsoft OS that is older than 2 years is well beyond the "use by" date. Any MS OS installation that's older than 6 months is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Actually, have you ever noticed how your new (2 years ago) computer just doesn't seem as fast as it was when you got it?

Some of it is a matter of perception, since you probably upgraded from a slower computer 2 years ago. But some of it is real.

OS Decay happens. You get fragmentation (disk and registry), and little bits of this and that installed here and there, and it gradually gums up the works.

The best thing to do is to reformat (even low level) your system drive and re-install everything - but there are less drastic steps that will alleviate some of the problems - defragging, uninstalling crap apps, refurbing your registry, etc.