Theres an article over here on the Wall Street Journal asking is windows worth $45. it sayts that for what you pay for the average PC, $45 goes to Microsoft for Windows. They ask is Windows worth it. Well, Why not? Ok, i know you can get all the antitrust thing you want, but when you look at what you get for your $45, which, BTW, is an guestimate by them, its not that bad. theres Windows Media Player, which, ok is free, but has CDR support. DVDR support is built in, a firewall, antivirus is in SP2 (i think), and various other cool things. you have Windows Movie Maker, which isent great, but does the job, and you get all this for the same price as Nero. Actually, Nero cost more. So, by my reckoning, windows should be worth more then $45. its better then going to the shop and paying EUR163 just for XP Pro, or EUR101 for Windows XP home, as an OEM copy.