Well, here is the thing. I think most people understand that a computer has become an appliance. It's a machine to gather information, publish information, and a simple communications tool. Most people have come to know windows because it's loaded on every factory made box everywhere. I think that people want to spend time doing the things they do on a computer and not to learn about the machine or software they are using. It's all about being productive. *nix is a vastly more powerful OS in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it. The vast majority of people going to Wal-Mart to buy a computer don't care about this. The only way to make this customer happy is to emulate what they do know (outlook express, IE, Menu's, Office). If you can't do this 80% of the people buying your machine are going to be some what unhappy. Will some people learn a new way to do things, yes. However, even after they learn this still might not be enough as these are the same people who will likely become frustrated and have someone load windows back on their machine. If equipment manufacturers want to move away from windows they will need to provide a distro that looks and feels like windows and I haven't seen any distro that has accomplished this.