Before I get into my rant, let me tell you what my background is.  I have used Windows since 3.11 for Workgroups.  After 3.11, I went to 95, then to XP.  I skipped 98, ME, and 2000, but they are similar enough to XP and 95 that I don't think I missed much.

On the Linux side, I started with Mandrake, then Fedora Core, then Slackware.  Since my preferred flavor of linux is Slack, I used it for about 2 years on my laptop computer.  Since then, I have also been managing a Centos and a Debian server.

Apple, not much to say except that it is similar to Linux.  I do not pretend that I have a lot of Mac OSX experience, but with a week straight that I spent using it, I liked it quite a bit because of the Terminal.

So, does Microsoft Windows suck?  I would say no.  Why would I say that when every other person you read on the internet bash Windows, especially Vista?  It's because I personally believe that Windows is a great Operating System.  Why would I say such a thing when every other day, you hear about someone getting virus or spyware on their computer?  Simple, that's because most people don't take necessary precautions to prevent such things.  Windows has more than 80% of the market share, of course if anyone were to write malware, they would target Windows.  It's just economics.  Malware earns money for its makers, if they target Mac, they get about 7% of the market share.  If they target Linux, they'd get 1% of the market share.  Naturally, their best bet of making the most money would be Windows.

Even though most people say that Linux is more secure than Windows, I would venture to argue otherwise.  Why is this?  If you have a Linux box, you would have to do updates almost as often as a Windows box.  These updates are for a variety of different reasons such as memory leaks, security vulnerabilities, or just fixing minor/major bugs in the software.  Due to the nature of the software development in the Linux community, some of these software are neglected and aren't updated, even if they contain major bugs.  On top of all of this, if a Linux box is compromised, you would have no idea what is happening with your box.  Skilled hackers can hide their trace so well that it would take you months before you realize what's happening, if you realize anything at all.  With the law of averages on my side, I would argue that there exists the same amount of vulnerability in Linux as it is in Windows.

Another thing about Linux, when compared to Windows, is that it lacks conformity.  There are a multitude of flavors of Linux that makes it hard to keep your box up to date because it may not have been compiled or repackaged for your system (yet).  Managing multiple Linux servers not only requires you to know Linux really well, but that you would also need to be a very competent programmer to do so.  There will be many times when you need to write scripts to update all the servers you are managing, or install something new on them.

Windows, on the other hand, has a quite simple interface.  You can teach almost anyone, within a short amount of time, to manage a large amount of servers.  Of course, there are also downsides to this too, but that's for a different post at another time.  All in all, in my opinion, scaling a Windows network is a lot easier than scaling a Linux network.

Although I do not meant for this post to start any flamewars, but I find it necessary to point out that there are times Linux is better, and there are times Windows is better.  I am a user of both, and I always find myself switching to Windows for certain tasks while remaining in Linux for others.  I just absolutely hate it when someone comes up to me and profess how great Linux is, and how crappy Windows is.  I find such conversations ending up in them telling me how stupid I am, or how I do not know anything about Linux and the likes.  I do not know all that there is to know about Linux, but I do know a good amount to do what I need to do.