Reply #11: Good post and worth considering!

[Deja Q]

A good antivirus program will stop anything.

And Win2k is very nice indeed. Much less bloated than XP, doesn't crash, and is too easy to use. (XP is a myopic, convoluted mess to configure and deal with.)

But I am outdated and my experience with Macs pre-OSX is rather grim. If OS X is what it's cracked up to be, I'd reconsider... But Macs are very costly and to my knowledge, many old people like to retire and count their pennies.

I'd build a custom-made unit similar to yours and get Win2k for the OS; heck I still see Win98 and ME in stores so Win2k must surely still be available! (Heck, for $700 I can build a computer that's faster than an Intel P4 running at 2.7GHz, has 1GB RAM, 160GB HD, Geforce 4600 video, SB Audigy sound, and Win2k... it would cremate a $1000 Mac! Just think of how little a machine with the specs you'd said would cost; $300?!)