Just now I was in Windoze XP. Got to use some windoze program. Then it freezed. I reset the computer and boot into Linux. Mine freezes everytime I do something useful with my computer.

the thing i dont understand about all linux users is that they will tolerate a multitude of problems on linux, and derive joy from problem solving and troubleshooting the situation. when windows won't do something right, you bash it. you know it is possible to troubleshoot and fix windows problems too right? take your sudden and mysterious freezing problem. what applications are you running in the background? is your windows updated? are all your drivers updated? what program causes the sudden freeze? there are admin tools and system logs to check what specifically caused system instability. once you've discovered the error messages, windows offers documentation clearly explaining what why how when, and what actions to take to fix the problem - eliminating the dependency most linux users have with a "community." if anything, troubleshooting and fixing windows 2000/xp pro problems is exponentially simpler when compared to linux, since it is not a script or code error or hardware conflict, or buggy this and buggy that, but usually something simple.

also, why is it so tolerable to use second-rate programs that only copy from win32 applications? like icq, msn, or any other IM program. why is it so okay to use software that lacks 70% of the useful features found in their original form? the greatness of open source, its free. thats also its downfall, since making money can be a huge motivation in designing amazing software.

as you can tell, i am a windows user. however, my interest in linux is huge and i am going to completely stop using windows and install mandrake 10 official when its available. despite my feelings towards feature-less simple apps like IM's, i will tolerate it anyway. my reasons for switching are purely ethical and has little to do with what offers what... because i am confident that for the average home computer user, windows clearly exceeds expectations in all categories. whoever says windows 2000 pro or xp pro are unstable are being stubborn and won't even try to troubleshoot as they would in linux. as for ease of use.. haha, not even comparable. go look into any forum category and notice how every single post is about something usually quite simple and basic, not working, and taking weeks to fix, if ever.

as for the OS freezing in winXP, about the only time that should happen is with bad drivers installed or bad hardware as long as you are not running a program that will lock up the computer.

several games are notorious for locking up the computer and causing a random reboot as will some web pages that are just coded bad enough to cause IE to crash the OS.

virus, spyware, blackice and a few other background programs will also cause your issue. all in all if you are using winXP for browsing, or office products you should only have to reboot from safe programs about 1 time a week, maybe as much as 1 time a day, but odds are you should not have to reboot more often then that.

now win9x is an other story all together. that is a set of OSs that could need to be rebooted as often as 3-10times a day.

Almost never, don't reboot if that happens instead, open up your task manager with Ctrl-shift-esc. Go to processes, and right click on "explorer.exe" click end process. This will shut down Windows's GUI. Then click the Task, or whatever the first tab is, and start a new process called "explorer.exe". This will solve 99.999999999999% of your problems.

/begin rant
I don't compare Microsoft's products to those of the free world. Everything has its uses. I have a small slice of my hard drive reserved for Windows 98 because I found a $2 game that is really fun to play (and sometimes I play DiVX movies under Windows too), and I have a webcam that has a wierd driver that I haven't bothered to try and compile into my kernel (actually I don't think its ready for 2.6 anyways). I used to use Windows XP for a few things, but its a space hawg and I do actually use Linux for my daily computer things.

Honestly, I do find it more fun to use my computer under GNU/Linux (and FreeBSD/NetBSD felt good too). Its easier to fix what you have after a few searches or questions than that other OS. I don't need a decompiler to change a configuration (and I won't get arrested if I do). There are some things I can do better, faster, and with more eye candy than otherwise (at least without a long tweak session and then purchasing some expensive third-party products to do what is already there for most GNU/Linux distros).

My $0.02. I know that many people really feel the need to compare Microsoft's products to the ones we use, but I don't see the point. If you were honest enough to buy Windows, you should use it or sell it on Ebay. If you stole it, shame on you! You don't have any right to compare a legal product to a stolen one. That would be comparing something good with something you shouldn't have.

Okay, my $0.04
/end rant

Actually I know the problem. Mine probably from faulty RAM. I've tried with other computers though. But somehow Linux survive!

I did. Most of the time I take time troubleshooting mine and my other windows-user friends. I enjoy doing it by the way.

You're right. We can't expect open source software developer to make everything accessible to normal user while they get nothing (I mean money, may be they enjoy it) for it.

I understand because I was raised with Windows and enjoy tweaking my Windows. My first month of using linux was complete 'hell'. But you'll find soon that using linux is a lot more interesting Don't take my post seriously, it is 1/2 joke, 1/2 sarcastic

Actually, you've hit upon the likely problem. Both are right. Its likely a RAM problem, but its also likely a Windows software problem = bad use of RAM. That's what kept me from using that excellent sound player Q3B on WinXP. It used all my RAM in seconds. Worked great on other versions.

I still don't see a question about Linux in this thread though...

I don't know what everybody elses excuses are, but the people I got my first distro from suckered me into a "good deal" on a pack mule full of Windows Bashing Sticks. I gotta get rid of them all, and I can't sell the freakin' things.

I agree. Linux is at once more stable, and more problem-ridden, the two contradict.

I run mandrake and windows 2000. My win2k machine runs wonderfully, and I run all kinds of apps on it. My mandrake box freezes when it's talking to CD sometimes. I mean, mouse and everything frozen. Windows hardly ever.

I'll trade 'em for a few bridges (I currently am offering the Golden Gate and the Link from NB to PEI - you can have both for your sticks)

Weird! Impossible! I can't believe that Linux would do such thing like that to you as Windows would do that kind of thing so often to me! Maybe my Windows hates me!

Uninstall IE explorer and Outlook, Download and run adaware, Stop all processes that are not completely necessary, Download Enditall2 and run that to stop other programs that Ctrl alt del dosnt show, Download the trial version of XPLite and eninstall all the extra crap that XP installs Dont download music or anything that uses third party programs as download assistants, Run a hardware firewall, Run msconfig and stop everything from starting up automatically, If you can dont run a antivirus program, Use Opera or Mozilla for a browser, and what else???

Open up DOS window and issue a command: FORMAT C:\ ?

Under Windows XP, individual programs and the operating system as a whole very rarely have problems, but I am meticulous about what software gets installed in the first place. Most of my Windows software actually is free software: Mozilla 1.6, Mozilla Firefox 0.8, Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5, and Gaim 0.75. Of course, I also have my share of proprietary applications: Microsoft Visual Studio, the Java SDK and NetBeans IDE, Corel WordPerfect Suite 11 (it came with the computer), etc.

I'd boot almost exclusively into Linux now if everything worked right (it's a laptop, and I don't care to take the hassle of making everything work when it already works under Windows), and I could get a larger partition without destroying my Windows data. My NTFS partition has unmovable data on both ends, unfortunately.