It’s not a bona fide “vulnerability,” per se. It’s the default setting for UAC in Windows 7, which is Microsoft’s response to customer complaints. There is a fix for anyone who wants it; all you have to do is turn it back up to “always notify.”

That said, Linux is hardly a solution. Just in case you try the rebuttal that every Linux fanboy under the sun can conjure up on the fly, and claim that your grandmother has been using Linux for years with no problem; I’m going to say that I don’t know your grandmother, and that mine could not use Linux. Not only is she lacking in savvy, but she also uses applications that do not run under Wine, and for which there are no open source alternatives. MailWasher Pro is just one of them. And even if Quicken, Family Tree Maker, and AnyTime Organizer all worked, and even if WordWeb could be installed and set to autostart; no one distro will run on all processors, or get online with all WiFi devices. Not even Ubuntu will run on a Mobile Athlon 64 X2 TK-53. Out of twelve different distros I tried on my Aspire 5050-5430, only three of them would actually boot. Of those three, only PCLinuxOS detected my Broadcom WiFi chip, and yet it still couldn’t get online with it.

Beyond that, one thing Unix-based operating systems have that Windows does NOT have is problems out of the box, before you ever install a third-party application or driver. I will not trust Linux or Apple with a flashdrive unless I have a backup. Run a portable application off a flashdrive for too long, or use too many devices at once (e.g. Targus USB mouse, PSC 1410, Kingston DataTraveler, WD Passport), and the USB subsystem will crash. If you’re really unlucky, your data will be zapped in the process. And after the USB drivers crash the first time, they will crash inevitably every few hours afterward, until the OS is reinstalled. Another issue that can happen without warning is when the icons in the panels rearrange themselves (e.g. clock on the left, quit button in the middle, launch buttons on the right, etc.). And nobody seems to know what causes the problem; they just overlook it and continue to swear that Linux and Mac OS are (*cough*) MORE stable (*cough*) than Windows.

Another problem is the sleep bug. If I leave Firefox open in a SINGLE tab and put a machine to sleep, it wakes right back up. And this is not an anomaly; CNET actually has a tutorial to address the well-known flaw, advising you to unplug all peripherals, close all running applications, and log off all users. RIDICULOUS!!! I very frequently put Windows in standby with three or four applications open, and sometimes over ten tabs in Firefox, so I can get back to what I was working on later. Standby is an indispensable function to me. The biggest problem with Windows is not the registry, contrary to popular belief, but installing and uninstalling tens of applications (without terminating them first), installing a poorly-written program from a vendor who doesn’t appear on download.com or anywhere else, or malware. While a lot of Linux and Mac problems turn out to be “phantom bugs” that never get resolved in the forums, every Windows problem under the sun has been addressed (usually more than once), and is searchable through Google. And with Vista and the upcoming Windows 7, you can once more surf the Web without merciless pummeling, even if you don’t use antivirus.

Since drive-by downloads became such a big issue with Windows XP, a lot of people threw up their hands and emigrated because they couldn’t figure out what to do about it, settling for the first platform that could get them online and let them check their e-mail without getting infected (unfortunately, Apple’s market share is making it a target now, and the first PoC drive-by downloads have started to appear on the Web). This is not an option to everyone; some people need more than an Internet appliance that can perform a small handful of misc. functions (and I’ve already heard the BootCamp and Parallels arguments umpteen times; you just waste resources and HDD space when you could simply stick to the standard). For XP and 2K users, there are now third-party tools that can block drive-by downloads, such as Norton, McAfee, LinkScanner, and the policy sandbox GeSWall. Users who want to free up resources could just use the techiques at http://invincible-windows.blogspot.com/

Macs are expensive, and you can’t upgrade the hardware like you can with a PC. You can run any Windows application by adding Windows, or you could save money and get a PC. Linux is one of the hardest platforms to use, out of the question for Average Joe. @Shantanu Tushar, recommending Linux to geeks won’t get you very far, because Linux isn’t for geeks; it’s for nerds. Geeks have lives and girlfriends, and prefer productive equipment over tinker toys; geeks prefer to get things done.

Funny, you don’t sound like someone who works with Vista machines “alot.” Granted, a lot of Vista users will “balk at dealing with more than two security prompts per day,” probably none of them being familiar with Mac OS X or Linux. But you make a critical mistake when you talk about alert fatigue, comparing UAC to a HIPS engine. UAC does NOT query you when IE tries to connect to the Internet or contact an unknown IP address, or when Skype tries to act as a server, or when TinySpell tries to monitor keystrokes. It was designed to make developers start digitally signing their drivers, and can add to security as an authentication mechanism, particularly if used with a limited account. Bottom line, UAC only queries you for processes that require administrative privileges. And it only queries you ONCE, each time the program is run; you won’t get ten prompts while installing a new program, and ten more after the fact, as you would with a HIPS firewall like ZoneAlarm or Comodo. Your claim to experience with Vista is suspect, I’m afraid.