And I for one cant wait until they release Duke Nukem Forever on it!

Most of my friends have opted for PS3s but out of 4 people I know with Xbox 360s 3 of them hav had the RROD. (two within the last week)
One of them is a very big game player.
He was the first one to have his 360 die on him.
He has played the PS3 at least as much and watched both bluray and other media on it.
The PS3 so far hasn't had an ounce of trouble.

So why does so much non-free software also include the process you just mentioned?

OK let me just change what you said for expensive software that I have had dealings with.

You spend time to talk to the salesman. Time to work out how to tell if he is lying and even time (hopefully beforehand) to read through it's features, bugs and abilities to find out if it will solve the problem you have.
You buy it and too late find out it doesn't do what you want.
You have spent a lot of money and time on this project and cannot look bad in front of your employees/bosses.
You make the best of the situation and have to pay high support costs to try to get the software working.

I think you find that most people produce free (both terms) for themselves. They usually give it away to.
They don't tend to produce free sotware to make others (ie. YOU) money.

Although they might code something to offer people a free (both terms of the word again) alternative.

My father wrote some software for a company.
They paid for it.
That was that.
I felt that others might want to use it.
Against most others advice we let it go free.
He is no poorer as he really wasnt going to advertise it and therefore sell it.
There is a new version that he wants to start to sell. Now he has a user base because we gave it away for free.
I think that free software helps small businesess to get software and grow and allows developers to prove that their software works.

I know I will get flamed for this post (due to being flamed in person by others) but it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.
free opticians software

Oh...
Fair point.
Mind you could steal the admin password...of course, I did that once and had a written warning. That was the point when I decided that I had to become an admin. Much fun has ensued (from French ensuer, from Latin sequi to follow) since.

not to mention a version of IE higher than 6.

Then why not install IE8 on XP?
Microsoft IE8 Page. Blah blah blah
The taskbar for Vista isnt good enough to upgrade to. Actually I switch between XP and Vista and don't find any real difference in using the taskbar other than instead of using run and search for opening up cmd etc.

Is this another USA shotgun thing?

I agree.
Microsoft would probably like to have a slice of the Server making pie.
But would that scare off their software buying customers?

I for one welcome our Wiimote controlled Mower Overloards and hope I get to the Wiimote before my enemies do. (It's a valid concern.)

Now I have another weather based topic.
In the UK all we really talk about is the weather.
I will enjoy asking people "What do you think about this blank sun? Do you think it will last long?"

You mean people in government are supposed to give reasons for doing things!
I must have got confused somewhere along the line...

I kind of agree.
We have an application for microsoft pcs that is completely free.
It's for opticians and yet it isn't being used that much really.
It's not a light weight app either. 3 user over a netwok and it does really cool stuff. (only cool if you are an optician)

I think it is suffering because it is free as in beer.
If you want to have a look (If you are not an optician, then I wouldn't reccomend it)it is at www.optilett.co.uk