Hey, I have ran Visa now for four years, since it was Longhorn, i have plenty of MS Contacts and i have an MSDN account. I have had five versions now and in my opinion from Longhorn to Vista they have got slower, i could run Longhorn on a PIII 800 Machine, its was just as quick as XP. I couldnt even install Vista RC or Beta on the Machine, installed it on my Core Duo 1.6 and its just not making me want to use it, i think its slower, things seem to become unstable or slow. I think i should have got an Intel Mac Book and installed XP on it for those Apps where only Windows will do. Every single person who i know with a MAC loves it and have never moaned. Visa was ment to be as stable as Linux and as designer as MAC. I think its neither, even though the interface is more Design and Style orientated. Just my two cents worth really.
I am told Lindows is pretty good, not got a copy yet but might try it soon, its got WINE on it that runs Windows Apps, but i have installed Wine on RedHat and couldnt get FS2004 to run =( so still gotta keep XP. As for stock dumping i am not to sure, i never seen no ME or 98 machines been dumped over here when there time was up, you can even still get Windows 2000 with some new computers as its regarded the best MS OS.