I'd seen Windows XP from a distance, but I hadn't really visited until last night. Sure, I'd been a tourist, browsing on a Internet Explorer to see how it rendered, but I'd never stayed long enough to have a meaningful experience, like installing a new applications for myself, or trying to get a new piece of hardware to work with it.

So last night I had the chance to visit the land of Windows XP, helping setup a laptop to be more functional and secure. There were some pleasant sights to see: XP has a bit of eye-candy built-in, with dropshows here and there, and menus that fade in and out.

Soon I saw the signs that as a resident of Linuxland, I was in a different culture. It's a bit like having visited Europe and noticing the that cars are smaller, the washing machines are smaller and by golly, some of the beaches are really different.

So was my experience with Windows XP.

XP is more than just an operating system, it's truly the cultural foundation for the software that runs on it. XP is commercial, so the software that runs on XP tends to be commercial. XP acts paranoid and overly paternal at times, and other applications follow suit.

A commercial culture

Compared to a standard Linux installation, Windows XP had relatively little software that came with it. I found no great music player or digital photo management software, for example. And the software it did come with chosen not because it was great software, because it was strategic for Microsoft as a corporation. Consider: For a chat program, Windows Messenger was installed. No surprise, it's written by Microsoft and made to work primary with their network.

I immediately installed Gaim for Windows as replacement. Not only is it free, but without a commercial interest, it works with many chat networks, connecting to the AOL,Yahoo and Google chat networks as easily as Microsoft's.

It's no wonder a lot of software to make a complete desktop just seemed to be missing. Instead of paying an additional $200-$500 for the Microsoft Office suite, I installed the free OpenOffice for Windows. The state of Massachutts recently made the smart move to use OpenDocument format that's native with OpenOffice. It's a good move for the goverment and the people's access to public documents, but Microsoft has fought it tooth and nail because it's in the commercial interest to do so. Microsoft stands to lose millions in the deal.

So back to my story. I can get distracted when talking about this stuff.

I'll let you download this if you give me your e-mail address

So as I spent hours installing software that would have come by default with Linux, I noticed other elements of commercial culture creeping in. When I went to install a free-but-commercial program like iTunes, I was prompted to enter my password. It appears at first glance to be required for downloading iTunes, although it's not. It's just "clever marketing" I suppose.

As a business owner myself, I understand the value of "building a list" of prospects to contact.

I point this out as a cultural difference. In Linux cultural, being asked for an e-mail address to get a download could be considered offensive, or least suspect. Frankly, I appreciate the greater respect for my privacy in Linux culture.

I wouldn't have been installing iTunes at all, except that Windows currently does not support my favorite music player, the excellent Amarok.

Amarok covers all the basics of music listening and management offers unique features currently unmatched by iTunes including integration with Wikipedia, lyrics websites, and easy cover art downloads.

Speaking of respect for privacy, there's also respect for freedom. iTunes and Windows Media Player support restricting how I listen to music that I own. No thanks.

Just do what I tell you, and everything will be OK.

Windows XP is chattier. When I plugged in a wireless card, it notified me that it had found new hardware. Twice. Overall, the messages it gave were wordier, giving new users more information to make decisions, and explaining some jargon where it appeared. I found some of that helpful and see room for Linux to improve in this area.

At least once Microsoft abused this paternal tone. I was removing the Microsoft Outlook icon from the desktop when a pop-up message appeared.

Having removed other icons from the desktop, I expected a message telling me that removing the icon won't remove the whole application, and giving me a hint about how to do this.

This message was different. It was something like "This provides critical functionality. We strongly recommend that you do not remove it from the desktop." Hah.

Microsoft Outlook is widely known among geeks for problems with security and standards. As a professional e-mail host, I'm well aware of these issues.

But most people aren't, and the dialog message I was reading was rather stern about the matter. What good is it to dumb down a message to the user, if they still need a geek who knows better to translate it?

Outlook was about to be supplanted by the excellent and free Thunderbird e-mail program.

Virus Protection? We'll sell you that, too.

Back in Linuxland, viruses, spyware, and adware are hardly an issue. Visiting Windows XP, I knew it would be important to immediately take measures to secure the system. Replacing the Explorer web browser with Firefox was my first step.

Windows XP was quick to start chatting with me to let me know that there was no Anti-virus software installed, but, it had a link to follow for "recommended solutions". This would be strategic anti-virus software partners I imagined.

I soon found and easily installed the free, open source ClamWin software, which gets good reviews.

So let's look at the big picture of viruses on Windows:

1. Microsoft provides Windows, Explorer, and Outlook, which are together responsible for letting in a large percentage of malware into computers through their security deficiencies. Linux and Mac OS have far fewer problems, so it would seem Microsoft could reasonably provide better security in the first place.
2. There are good free virus scanners like ClamWin that exist, but Microsoft chooses not to provide or distribute one.
3. Microsoft is getting into the business of selling Anti-virus software

In summary, Microsoft is selling systems that are prone to viruses, and then selling us a solution to address the viruses. Anyone see a conflict of interest?

At the end of the evening, I was ready to go back home to Linuxland. I missed Amarok for music and Digikam for photo management. But most of all I missed the feel of home, of being some place that felt more secure and personal.

Windows culture is not for me.