Applications? I said operating systems do you understand the difference? Clearly not.

So you run a quad core processor - my point exactly - if you ran anything less, windows would fall over and shit itself.

Nope - I am not talking about the first Pentiums - have you looked at the pre-requisites for running Vista??

1Gb Memory!!!!!!!
40Gb hard drive (15Gb for operating system!!!!!!)
128Mb graphics (minimum!!!!)

This is ridiculous, and it's only the minimum - it's even more if you want see more to use the advanced graphics capabilities of aero, and I bet Win7 will require even more processing power.

Here's Linux (Ubuntu)

# 300 MHz x86 processor
# 64 MB of system memory (RAM)
# At least 4 GB of disk space (for full installation and swap space)
# VGA graphics card capable of 640x480 resolution
# CD-ROM drive or network card

This is one of the reasons I left windows - I don't need to waste 15 gig's of hard drive space on nodding animated dogs and paperclips, it is just an operating system - something to make it easier for you to run programs and manage files. It comes with lots of useless bloating that is replaced by better applications by most people.

MS paint / photoshop ??
Iexplorer / Firefox??
Office / open office??
etc / etc...

I also HATE the fact that when I tell windows that I will update later it keeps reminding me, and if I go for a cup of tea, I return to find that even though I have told it NO - I WILL UPDATE LATER it has decided it knows better and has rebooted my machine.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR