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Why select Windows over the alternatives?

 
Rancher
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This is my personal list. Note that I am not saying they are true, but that they are arguments for using windows over alternatives.

1) You don't know any better
2) You don't have a choice
3) It comes included with the hardware (I omit the word 'free')
4) It is the easier/safer option
5) The hardware/software is better/cheaper
6) It's there/better the devil you know
7) It works.

Note that for a long time I was a mixture of 2&3, then slipped into 4&6 but have been happily running Linux for a bit over a year. By choice. In that time I have considered encouraging others to move from Windows, but for them 1&7 are big arguments. Windows is aimed at them, they don't need any more than that and the options would be a hindrance rather than help.
 
Bartender
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8) because you have kids that want to run their goodies on it (or did I miss FIFA 08 for linux?).
 
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9) Because I have an iPhone and no Mac

I run XP on a spare laptop just for this purpose. My main machine runs Ubuntu.
 
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10) Because I need to test web sites on IE. So I run instances of Windows in Parallels or vmware on my Mac.
 
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Well, I don't see how 5) (The hardware/software is better/cheaper) is true, and 7) (It works) is just as true for other OSes as it is for Windows.

I use Windows at work because I have no choice (it's a company PC) - but the software that we're developing in the project I'm now in is being deployed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers.
 
David O'Meara
Rancher
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I don't completely believe #5 either, but it will be used as a reason.

#7 is strong because there is already a dominant (desktop) following.
 
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11) I can play lot of action packed games
 
Ranch Hand
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None of the above for me. I have no problem playing the Windows based 3D games I like in Linux.

At home, I think the biggest reason is the comfort level, people are used to Windows so they use it.

The reasons for using it at work are getting smaller and smaller, I see Linux really taking off at work and even home since the major distros easily pass the mom/grandma test these days.

#3 is probably the biggest reason. It is the reason IE is dominant still. It comes with Windows so people use it. The machine comes with windows, so they use it.
 
Rancher
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Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
10) Because I need to test web sites on IE. So I run instances of Windows in Parallels or vmware on my Mac.



But how many versions of Windows to you test on? And how many versions of IE?

It can get really expensive, let alone time consuming to retro-test back to Win98 and IE 4
 
Bear Bibeault
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Originally posted by Pat Farrell:
But how many versions of Windows to[sic] you test on? And how many versions of IE?


With regards to Windows, we support 3 configurations: XP/IE6, XP/IE7, Vista/IE7.

(We also support Firefox on XP, Vista, OS X and Linux. Safari support is on the short list.)
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