For the most part most people on slashdot are not the target audience, and most people who will ever touch Windows 7 will get it the same way they got XP, etc. with a new machine. Given the current economic environment, I doubt very many "consumers" will be part with hard earned cash for a PC they don't need at present.

it will be interesting to see what the conversion stats are once we're beyond the initial release though.

Actually I've never had a problem with Symantec AV, but then I've always used the corporate edition without all the consumer crud.

My first Sparc was an IPC, with a huge 20" monitor, fantastic. Good way to go I figure. Sorry for your loss, but thanks for sharing.

I think if people are coming from an existing application they generally have expectations, provided they can do the same things in the same way they usually stay. If users have to change their workflow however, then the novelty wears of really fast. Which brings me to my second point, if user have support, then they'll stay longer, and wont mind doing stuff like tcpdumps, etc. provided somebody else is telling them what to type or tweak. If people know they can just ask somebody and get results in a day they usually stay. At least in my experience of familial & work tech support anyway.

Trying to have kids at the moment, funnily enough the first two things that occurred to me once I began to think about that was that I needed to get rid of the TV and windows. The way I figure it they both teach bad habits, and I'll be dammed if any kid of mine is going to grow up a windows user :) But seriously, who the hell cares about about the native interface? The fact that it looks like it was designed in the 90's is because it was, like the rump of XP, it's "good enough" and compared to anything else they've ever put out it's fairly bullet proof, provided you don't try to get clever with the underlying hardware. I don't know about you, but XP will be my last windows OS.

I've been a sysadmin for years too, and for those that love tech & the life it's still the only job worth doing IMO, or perhaps more to the point the only one I do for less/free. The job, and the challenges that come with it, is it's own reward.