Stardate 20010802.1526 (On Screen): If there weren't enough good reasons already to avoid WinXP, it turns out that you won't be able to run arbitrary applications on it. Only apps officially blessed by Microsoft will work; WinXP will refuse to install some programs not blessed by Microsoft itself. It's not clear how extensive this is or whether it applies to everything or only a subset of programs, but even in the latter case it's unacceptable. The purported reason for doing it is to decrease unreliability by not permitting people to install drivers which haven't been thoroughly been tested (this being the largest source of unreliability in NT and 2K) but it also has the effect of forcing ISVs to pay tribute to Microsoft before publishing their programs.
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