Hahaha - that's one of the reactions you get from PC World in the UK. Here's a tip for anyone in the UK thinking of going to shop at PC World: go during term-time and during the week (Mon - Fri) - at this time all the staff tend to be 40+ and so have a bit more knowledge, a bit more confidence and a lot more customer handling skills. If you go at the weekend you encounter the kids doing a weekend job and they know absolutely nothing - if you ask about memory they'll just tell you that there is a guy there who will fit it for £40. I've lost count of the number of times I've confused them with hard questions like "which video card comes in that box" or "what operating system is on it" and other specialised technical questions.

Even better, go in tell the assistants to go away, see what you like and then go online to buy it. No hassle and you've had the opportunity to look round.

hey... pc world rocks !!!!!!

i wondered into pc world.. after some (what at the time was cutting edge) 266mhz DDR RAM (256 megs of it... worth 20 £££)

it was the first time i had bought ram... so to besure i got what i wanted, i called it by its rull name at the parts counter... "256 megs of 168 pin 266mhz DDR SD-RAM" or whatever.....

the old woman looked to a younger collegue who was helping some other customer..
he pointed to a box..... she went into the back, picked up a box, handed it to me.. and asked... is this it..?

i looked at the box... it looked right.. paid my 20 squid and left..

when i got out, i reached for my calc... did the macths and realised she has accidently given me a 512 meg box....

sweeeet !

Yeah, but since XP only has 1 desktop without using any external programs...

without having read the actual description of this great new os i will only speculate:
-i believe the core components that are essential parts of the os and cannot be removed without seriously affection system stability and usability are not counted as 3 programs cluttering the desktop. this way, internet exploder can be run simultaniously with 3 other programs. more reason to stick with this marvellous browser and not install some crappy self-made bugzillas that don´t even render perfectly well done pages without flaws and block interesting new ads about products i would surely buy
-actually i believe that there can be 3 windows on the desktop, the others minimize themselves in order to keep the desktop clean. what a smart invention :/
-to my experience the way to get ordinary people interested in linux is to show them nice desktops, open office and web browser and say "you see, this is just like windows except there are no viruses to worry about".
-one last thing: i seriously believe that microsoft will silently bury it´s intention to get annual license fees. sure they can invent some stupid gold memberships, but there will never be a windows that requires activation or regular payment anymore. they just cannot afford to lose big and public customers to linux (by the time they get longhorny out linux has evolved a lot).
-i just hope avid will port softimage foundation to osx too (sorry, couldn´t resist, i really want to buy it and start my own business instead of making modelling on w2k/3dsmax at my current job). maybe i should start a petition...