'edit' (DOS) - I probably use that the most for basic text editing, since I usually have a command prompt up anyways.

Enh, fair enough, but since the sort of stuff people normally need help with is, in part, what I actually do at work, I'd rather just tell them no than risk being caught out in a lie down the road.

Or you could just do what I do:

Acquaintance: Oh, you do computers? Can you fix my Windows?
Me: No, I don't work on computers outside of my job.

Nearly everyone who is an acquaintance has gone through that conversation with me at some point in time or another, and it's never been a problem. Most people just shrug and say, "Oh, well can you recommend somebody who does?" I think most computer professionals are afraid of how people will respond to them being blunt about that sort of thing, but the reality is that most people (in my experience, at least*) are perfectly accepting and understanding about it.

*I suppose, though, that it might be worth noting that although I'm typically the shy / quiet / not terribly social type, I am tall, in good shape, and have a deep voice, so when I do make myself stand up straight, look people in the eye, and be assertive and direct, they tend to respond how I'd like them to. YMMV if you're closer to the stereotypical 'geek', especially if you can't learn to make yourself use body language properly.

And by the way, the method I mentioned in the other post (ctrl-alt-del, t) is how I've done it since NT 4.0 as well, hehe, so it's deep ingrained muscle memory.

ctrl-alt-del, t
I might be able to get used to ctrl-shift-esc (never knew about that), but since I use ctrl-alt-del all the time anyways (log on / lock / log off / shutdown), it's the fastest-by-muscle-memory way to do it, for me. *shrug*

I've just recently been getting a group of 2008 x64 servers up and running, and for the most part, I actually like them. And no, you don't have to deal with the UAC popups etc. the way it is in Vista for every damned little thing.

My favorite usability change in Vista is probably the way that start menu folders are automatically and by default sorted alphabetically, instead of just appended to the end as they're added.

Yeah, I constantly ran into little things like that when I started using Vista, and even now that I know where everything is, there are lots of things that take longer / more clicks than in XP, for no good reason that I can discern.

The ones that gets me the most are things I used to be able to do very quickly with just the keyboard that now are difficult or impossible without reaching for the mouse, like shutdown / restart, opening network connections, or starting task manager.

Nearly all the things I really give a crap about are backed up and don't change / grow very often. I have RAID 1, so that averts basic disaster, and I'm not at notable risk for stuff like flood, fire, etc., so I'm a bit more lax than I could be...but as much of a bother as it would be to lose everything on all my personal computers, it wouldn't exactly be world-ending. There's nothing I have that can't be replaced easily, except my Winamp skin.

Ditto. The 2 stations I listened to 95% of the time (I've canceled) were XM82 The System and XM48 Squizz. The System is gone, Area is weak, and Squizz has become 'Octane' and very pussified. It used to be a great place for rock / hard rock and occasionally some metal, and it still has that to a degree, but they've mixed in a lot of pop now, too, and almost never touch on the more hardcore stuff they used to play. On the last trip I took before I canceled, I heard 5 Nickelback songs in as many hours. Fuck. That.