but they buy out of fear of being incompatible or because they MIGHT some day need some feature that it has (and the competitors does not). To me this is like buying a gas guzzling truck, when you need an economy car, because some day you might want to haul something. Free Features Windows, and most products Microsoft puts out, are very heavy in features that you don't need. The first rule of software developement is, " There are NO free features ". Every feature you add increases complexity, docuementation costs, potential bugs, support costs, testing time, training time and so on. To be a good engineer (or to engineer a good product) you need to know what to leave out. All of those "don't needs" hurt a product. If only 1% of your users are using the feature, then it may be a detriment to the other 99%. Many of the problems with setting up and supporting Windows and Microsoft Applications can be traced directly to those same unneeded features. Think how much better the system would be if it did only what you wanted. Which group are you designing for. It is clear that Apple (and Claris) design for the 95 - 99%, and just as clear that Microsoft (and some others) design for the 5% (or 1%). Unix Rants (Over Configuration) The biggest place this lesson needs to be learned is by Unix programmers -- but Windows programmers pull up a close second. They create System layers