Legacy of Microsoft...

[Gurm]

I think you misinterpret the mindset. Ask me how often I have had to reinstall a machine that I wasn't breaking daily with my beta software, hacking, filling the hard disk with questionable material and then emptying it, evaluating other software, etc.?

Never. My parents' machine has had XP on it for... since XP came out. Upgraded to SP1, upgraded to SP2, no reinstall. Same with Julie's. Really!

We have hundreds of customer machines that have been running XP for 2 years and will continue to run it for 2 more years. And that's just the length of time we've been responsible for them, not the total length of time running XP which is much longer.

Enthusiasts reinstall Linux less because the OS is more modular, but spend MUCH MUCH MUCH more time overall tinkering with it.

So once again, anti-"M$" sentiment has skewed the question overall.

[UtwigMU]

Depends, I think with laptops you need to reinstall more often since hardware, LAN changes more often and you have more drivers to play with.

Laptops it's once a year, desktops about 3 years

[Fluff]

Yep I routinely break my PC.

[Nowhere]

I think you misinterpret the mindset. Ask me how often I have had to reinstall a machine that I wasn't breaking daily with my beta software, hacking, filling the hard disk with questionable material and then emptying it, evaluating other software, etc.?

...

I try to use virtualised OS image for that...helps a lot.

[Gurm]

I try to use virtualised OS image for that...helps a lot.

Eh... I know. But I always MEAN to make a nice image... and never QUITE get it right...