To see spywares , spam, viruses and blue screens , and after many reboots finally system crash all together on my windows, this is why I use dual boot.
#Your cursor moved restart the system = windows"

I run a serious home based consulting practice. The only essential software service left (at least for me) that can't be handled by Linux programs is desktop publishing, specifically the ability to handle old PageMaker files as well as to create new ones.

As for stuff that is just for fun, hell, most of us who have been around for a while have old programs that we would like to keep on using, stuff that needs older operating systems in order to run. I still like lots of DOS games (and have access to them and to PageMaker as well in a Win98 installation that runs INSIDE Linux as a QEMU emulation). I also like some even older CP/M games, and I still have access to those through yet another emulation that runs inside the fake virtual machine that's handling Win98... Ya don't need dual boots no more, folks. You can have all sorts of other stuff working inside your main Linux system.

CAD / FEA applications: Solidworks, Inventor, I_DEAS - many of which have exclusivity agreements, or in the case of Autodesk, actually embed functionality in MS-Office apps.

Labview: development for application deployment on Windows systems

MS-Office: until Openoffice.org gets it right, I still need to load some e-mail attachments with MS-Word for translation to work flawlessly.

I wish I didn't need Windows, as I would reclaim an entire hard drive, but as it stands I am forced to by the de-facto OS standard until the major CAD/CAM developers jump ship.

Cast55's info is very useful for those of us who need to access whether or not somebody might be able to switch over completely. So CAD/CAM is limited, too... I guess I'm not surprised. There might have been state of the art Unix programs in that area at one time, but probably the current stuff IS all aimed at Wintel platforms. So, okay, for starters we have desktop publishing and CAD/CAM as areas that are likely to still require access to Windows... I wonder what else may turn up.

Not entirely true, as some of the higher end apps (Pro/Engineer, CATIA, etc.) offer Unix or Linux versions. Small companies usually can't afford to go that route, though, and tend to stick with the mainstream Windows apps. There are a few small CAD apps for Linux out there, but nothing mature enough to be useful.

Also, National Instruments makes a Linux version of Labview; however, as much as I'd like to be using that for program development, I still need to compile under windows for deployment to windows systems. Naturally, NI will not sell me the Labview development system for Linux for anything less than the cost of a brand new license.

I only need windows for printing. I made the mistake of buying a Canon. It is a superb printer however.

I still enjoy playing with free downloads and trying out new programs but it is becoming less and less with my present passion for linux.

I may boot into windows once a week or less depending on what needs to be printed.

My wife, who has little patience for computers, has abandoned windows entirely for linux.

I run my mother and brothers on Win XP.

Why I use Windows. Income Tax programs like Turbo Tax, TaxCut or TaxAct. Then there's Electronic Circuit-
Simulators like BiegeBag and others.

the card reader and pcmcia slots on my new laptop only run on xp.I also have a satellite receiver software tool that is windows only.plus my favorite tv/radio stream only runs on wmplayer

I use linux at home, if I cant use my works programs at home then in theory I cant work at home
......although seeing as I've lent my creative zen to my girlfriend it would be nice for my Sony Minidisk to work in Linux. {but not enough to re-install windoz!}

To update my Resume in MS Word.Consultants complain they have a format mismatch with OOffice

Also for Yahoo Music.It runs only IE.

i am happy to reply that i am now 100% MS free both at the house and at my office.

I have been MS free at the house for about 6 - 9 months now. Forget exactly when i got my new vid card so i could play WoW on my game box via Cedega.

At the school (my office) once my win2k server decieded to eat my quickbooks direcotry, my QB back up directory (on a seperate HD) and any file that was newer then 30 days old. i took it down. I ran 100% linux at the school for about 2 months until the wife tossed a fit about not having access to QuickBooks. i was unable to get QB running via Crossover Office on my debian systems (i do not like the unstable vs as it has just way to many fits, at least it did for me) so i told wife to either buy me a MAC or deal with the linux accounting software package i found (Quazar from Linuxcanada.com). Her mom bought the school a 20in iMAC G5, MS Office suite(hate it, but OO runs so slow on the MAC plus QB calls directly to Excel), QB Pro 2005, .MAC, and 3 years of service, along with 1 year of training. I just upgraded it from 512M to 1G ram.

So far it is nice, but i like Linux better over all. the few things the MAC OSx does better then linux are its auto mounting features as they are the best i have seen under any OS.

so i am now 100% microsoft FREE. it has taken just over 2 years but i have done it *woo hoo***

i use windows to:

sync and install programs to my pda (dell x50v)
pocketdivxencoder
fairuse wizard
games (far cry, bf2, etc)
photoshop

99% of my time is spent in linux however.

I like Debian for most stuff but Debian (linux?) can't run NASA WorldWind 1.3.
or many other graphics heavy apps

Games Only - only reason I dual boot!