No you wouldn't. Have you priced any parts for macs recently? Talk about running into trouble with a particular motherboard model not made anymore, what do you do with the imacs with the GPU solder problems? Replace the board with an identical model, with the same flaw? Yeah, great.

Need a new LCD on your macbook? Oh, look, Apple decided to take a standard LG lcd and reverse 8 of the wires so that you have to buy an Apple LCD from Apple for $400 instead of the generic $60 LG model.

$250 for a new license when replacing an $80 motherboard would still be better than paying $500 for an Apple motherboard. Shit, those things frequently cost more than $330 used on ebay.

No, it's 100% permanent. But you only chose to hide Bing Bar 4.3, see. 4.4 is a completely different program, and you need to be given the opportunity to see this new wonderful software!

He dismisses the tools because they are useless. The fact that you seem to think they are OK is only because you've never come across a bad problem in Windows.

Let's pretend for a minute that there's a new kernel level security patch on Windows that makes the system BSOD constantly on a system reboot. Let's pretend that it doesn't do this on any of your test systems or other equipment, and for whatever reason only affects a particular piece of hardware, despite not being a driver update. The computer never comes up again. Can't try safe mode, because on new windows the only way to get to safe mode is to reboot from a running system.

Let's check the log! Wait, it's in event viewer, and the system won't boot. Ok. Let's use DART to access the log!

It's not there. There's nothing there, because whatever "CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED" happened before the event viewer log actually engaged. The last entry in the event log was the first reboot yesterday and it has nothing else there since then, despite attempting to boot 30 times.

Or worse, DART can't seem to find the damn log at all. It also doesn't show any patches in the last 15 days, despite installing a patch 5 days ago, one 3 days ago, and one yesterday. Removing the offending hotfix doesn't work if it's not in the list. Oh, and system restore won't work, because the problem is caused by file permission on some file that you can't find because NONE OF THE SYSTEM LOGS ARE WORTH ANYTHING.

Boot time diagnostics for NTBOOT.txt? NO! YOU HAVE TO HAVE A RUNNING SYSTEM TO ENABLE THIS NOW! YOUR SYSTEM DOESN'T RUN, NO LOGGING FOR YOU! Oh, did you think you could enable that using bcdedit from a boot disc? NO! It will save the safeboot option, but bootlogging is thrown away because FUCK YOU. Safeboot won't work anyway, because the system is denying itself access to some unknown file.

In this situation, Linux has some sort of log, or has an obvious error on the screen itself. In windows, you don't get to find the error. You get to wipe the system and start over, and hope that your client has a recent backup because Microsoft decided that the repair install function was just toooooo complicated for them to maintain.

Yeah, it would be nice if having available information somehow let people educate themselves.

Except that when you can't afford a car, or health insurance, and are on food stamps because the only job available within traveling distance of where you live is a part time job as a gas station attendant, spending money on the internet and a computer isn't exactly a priority.

Even well educated people bring me their PCs constantly because they (the computers) are full of shit, but it's nothing compared to the crap that builds up on the computers of the poorer people in my town. Ever turn on a PC and have 17 different scam cleanup programs start immediately?

People who live in east bumfuck have to pay $100 a month for dialup. That's not an exaggeration.

Buying a $450 machine, having to pay a $100/month upkeep cost, and then having it become useless in 3 months because you accidentally clicked the wrong ad while browsing is not an option for poor rural people. If they want to use it again, they have to call someone to come out to them or drive 100+ miles to take it to someone. I have people come to my shop who had to drive 3.5 hours to get there because there is no place closer, and calling even those idiots in geek squad would run them $400.

If you are going to pay $2,000 a year on something that might let you educate yourself, you are better off with used textbooks than trying to do that over dialup.

At what point during the ~3.5 Billion year evolution from single cell organisms to modern humans could psychic abilities have suddenly sprung into being? What mechanism would allow animal cells to suddenly become magic? Studies are not necessary, because a basic understanding of biology and physics makes it immediately obvious that the very idea of psychic powers is absurd. Self replicating chemicals don't suddenly gain powers over the rest of nature by being self replicating.

You are suggesting that we can't dismiss anything, no matter how absurd, without first coming up with some sort of test to demonstrate that the absurd idea is absurd, and that is not only extremely resource intensive, but completely unnecessary and ridiculous. I would suggest that you need a better understanding of the natural world.

Or you could not waste everyone's time, press "Win+X" and then just pick either Command Prompt or Command Prompt (Admin) from the popup menu and get it done in less than 1 second.

increase your graphics settings?

Not sure you realize this, but your laptop is about 5% slower than an Atom D2700. You are using a netbook, dude, it's just a really big heavy expensive netbook.

This laptop is about 3 times faster than what you are using, just in CPU. Graphics would blow it away as well. Surely you aren't going to claim that less than an inch of size makes it "another class" are you? They are both "thin and light"

You mean like how all of your old dos drivers worked so well in windows 95? All of them?
Or how all of the old 95 drivers worked so well in ME, after they made the API changes in 98SE?
Or how you could just use your old 98SE drivers with XP?
Or how nobody lost any hardware when Vista came out because they stopped supporting the old NT drivers?
Oh, that's right, none of those things happened. Windows developers break driver compatibility all the time you tool. You can't say "5 year old drivers for XP still work in XP! Hurp hurp" because it's STILL XP. If you keep the same version of a linux distro, everything will still work. It's when you upgrade to a newer operating system, the same way you might from XP to 7, that you lose support, just like you do with windows!
idiot.

If you have any random 15 year old piece of kit, you are more likely to get it running in Linux or FreeBSD than you are in windows 8.

Try downloading ClassicShell. Windows 8 says "This program isn't used very often!" and then refuses to let you install it (yeah, you can click advanced, then force it, but most people won't do that). They are actively stopping people from using the start menu. I have not found any other program, anywhere, including known malware, which throws up this "not very many people use this, so we won't let you" message.

and when they do have a reasonable answer, stick your fingers in your ears and shout "LA LA LA LA LA! My fairy book is the same as your hundreds of years of combined, improved upon knowledge. We're the same, because I don't understand the way science works!"

I don't know if you've ever stopped to consider this, but your whole worldview is flawed. You believe there are only two options, either a) science is correct in every minute detail, or b) Magic. Any time you say "Science is just like faith" everyone who knows anything will immediately assume you are a moron because you stated "I think a 2000+ year old stone age book is on equal footing with hundreds of years of research, put under extreme scrutiny all the time."

We have exactly ZERO reason to believe that things were dramatically different billions of years ago. Nothing that we have ever seen suggests that it would be the case, which makes your "it might have been different" nothing but special pleading to allow yourself an excuse to believe in fantasy. Anyone can make crap up. "We don't know that all particles weren't made of bunnies 3 billion years ago. We have FAITH that they weren't. Anyone who says the universe isn't made of tiny bunnies is doing so for religious reasons." See how stupid that sounds? And is? Faith in a god is not the same as belief that the chair you sit in won't magically disappear, and you are a liar and charlatan if you suggest otherwise.

you are a moron. given that you are the same species as all other "races," it follows that there is no inequality. No "race" is more evolved than the others, all people are the same species. One branch has different colored skin or eyes. Do you believe Tabby cats are superior to calicoes? No? You say they are all just cats? Yeah, same thing for people you racist sack of shit.

Some little brats do that every Saturday to my office building. Seems to be just as popular a game as it ever was.

I frequently set people up with Linux Mint when they bring a computer into my shop with no windows sticker, an illegal copy of windows, and a bad enough infection that it requires re-installation. I won't remove an illegal copy of windows just cause it's illegal(only tell them that it's illegal and ask them if they wish to purchase a license), but I will not reinstall an illegal copy if it comes to that.

Sure, some of them have the money to get a new windows license with their repair, but in this area a lot of people just don't have that sort of money, and they jump at getting their PC up and running for $100 less. Once I put the install CD in, it takes about 30 minutes to run through, reboots, and everything works. Immediately. There is zero configuration required. The people I give it back to, who are not terribly tech savy, have all said they have really enjoyed it, found it easy to get around in and do what they need. They have no trouble figuring out the software manager, connecting to the internet, or setting up their e-mail. I have had one person who could not use his printer anymore, but chose to buy a $35 used printer rather than a $100 operating system license.

The only configuration I have to do on these systems is making sure that LibreOffice saves its documents in MS 2003 format by default, so they don't have to fight with compatibility when they send e-mails. Hardly "A day or longer"

We aren't really genetically identical to prehistoric humans though. As a quick example: I can digest lactose as an adult. This amazing feat arose in our species during the neolithic. It has occurred due to one of two completely unrelated mutations, in separate parts of the world. For 95% of our history, we as a species could not do this, and today a little over 50% of you still cannot.

Overall gene distribution patterns have changed radically, new mutations have popped up and become widespread. We may have been the same species 150,000 years ago, but we, taken as a whole, were not genetically identical.