This feature was handed over from Vista to W7. It’s not something new and amazing. However, I have always liked this feature.
As far as selling LINUX, I hate Linux. It is the OS for our PASON system and it seriously SUX. Not only is it slow, but it crashes, locks up, loses data every hour on the hour, but it is the only system of it’s kind and we are forced to live with it. I would love to see W7 take over and soon.
Just speculating but maybe it's your PASON system that is the problem. Setting the os wars aside linux is noted for basic stability and up-time without having to restart for system changes.
My only point is that it might not be fair to blame linux in general for the failings of some proprietary system. Most all proprietary systems choke after awhile because they don't have the os development that a mainstream os has.
Your problems could stem from a number of factors. Hardware, Software (OS / Applications), administration, or a combination thereof.
My initial thought was: you need to replace your SysAdmin/DBA. But when you get into some of these specialized systems you can run into problems that no OS can handle well if the specialized software is the main culprit. And believe me, I've seen it before. Troubleshooting such things as you describe is never easy, and never quick, unless an exact same thing has happened before on other companies systems.
BTW: MySQL is available for Windows, but whether or not PASON is set to run on MySQL running on Windows is another matter. Switching OS' may just give you a whole new set of problems.