I agree - I'm running Linux Mint (Ubuntu under the hood) and I can access windows disks on other PCs without problems. There's very little I need that can't be done on Linux, but I also have a Windows 7 PC on the network that can't access the internet (no default gateway) which I can remote onto to run Office and games. Libre Office is fine for opening Office files, but I wouldn't want to try to do work on spreadsheets, Visio or mail merges with it.