[quote]If you want to install a program, you typically google around until you find a few things that look OK, download them from untrustworthy websites, double-click the installers, running untrusted native code on your machine, click through license agreements, choose where to install them, and hope they don't own your machine.[/quote]
Don't download crappy freeware/shareware apps from no-name companies? I don't ever want or need to install such programs. Most of these apps are things like "convertXtoY"...if you want lots of little free tinker apps, linux definitely has them. But this is the linux mentality. The windows mentality is instead of collecting hundreds of little 1-function programs made by different people, you buy 1 piece of quality software that covers everything related to a particular task.
Adobe provides the majority of suites that are needed for creative work. If you are a CG artist your software staples are Photoshop, ZBrush, Painter, 3ds max, Illustrator...none of these available for Linux for forget about it. Yes you have "alternatives" like Gimp, Inkscape, and Blender but this isn't what the rest (99%) of the artistic community uses and you will always be struggling behind the curve if you insist on using different software from the rest of the community. Obviously MS wins when it comes to gaming although I don't game at all so that is irrelevant to me.
I don't like the Windows OS, it has a lot of flaws, but no less than linux or mac in my opinion, and I'm not about to sacrifice well designed professional applications for hundreds of disorganized 1-function free apps. Your choice of OS shouldn't be about the OS itself it should be about what apps you need to use. If the apps I need existed on Linux, I would probably switch...but they just don't.
I also am quite impressed with the ability of MS to create truly amazing API's with excellent documentation. DirectX is far far superior to OpenGL in terms of documentation and usability, and the MSDN documentation for windows programming is also excellent. Visual Studio is a really top notch IDE that has no equal on Linux.