Why then my Windows installations in the course of last 10 years have never "deterioted" on their own? My 386 from '91 has still the same Windows 3.1 installation I put there back in the day. The machine was used until recently by my parents for creating and printing religious material :)

Windows not really has to be kept alive. It keeps alive for giving people what they generally need: A working environment for surfing and writing text. Sure, every OS has their problems but generally it's the best choice for people so it reigns. It's that simple, just like in other fields of every day commercial products. Until this is recognized by OS advocates, they will be in the minority. Ubuntu is going in the right direction, though.

A Week? Really? :) Why did you format it in the first place? Why did you setup a restore image in the first place created on the Windows clean installation?

And the last time I did Upgrade Version on Ubuntu, it took an hour just to download the new files.

I have really no problem your post and have used Ubuntu desktop with success in the past, but it just irks me how much GNU/Linux people bend the truth when pushing their agenda. Or maybe they really just don't know any better than just to "format and reinstall" on Windows.

Of course they care. XP is their product and they want people to still use, because they get money from it. The whole deadline dance is just a way to push people to Vista. MS never had any intention to really cut XP off, that would be insane.

You do know you can turn all that off in Chrome? Oh wait, no you did not :) Oh well, +5 insightful for you anyway... You would get better privacy, if you did not use Google at all, btw. It saves and indexes your searches anyway.

I have a photocopier - why should I be prevented from copying money with it?