Via Slashdot comes the story of a man who plugged his girlfriend's computer into her new Yahoo! DSL only to have it slow to a crawl four minutes later, laden with spyware and virus infections.

Other sites have documented how quickly a fresh copy of Windows XP can be made to go sour by spyware, malware, and viruses. But Mark Morford, author of the above-mentioned article, asks

Why the hell do people put up with this? Why is there not some massive revolt, some huge insurrection against Microsoft? Why is there not a huge contingent of furious users stomping up to Seattle with torches and scythes and crowbars, demanding the Windows Frankenstein monster be sacrificed at the altar of decent functionality and an elegant user interface?

As an IT support professional (more or less), I see this stuff all the time. It boils down to a few factors:

1. By and large, Windows users expect everything to be done for them. They figure that if Windows doesn't do something about their virus protection or spyware protection, then it isn't important; or, it doesn't even cross their minds. Linux users are used to doing things for themselves, usually on the command-line. The GUI is for convenience (I could make a mySQL database on the command-line -- and I have -- or, with significantly less typing and some mouse-clicks, I could have phpMyAdmin do it).
2. It's not a Windows user thing, but a technology user thing. Some people just don't maintain things. They don't take care of their house, their apartment, their bedroom, or their car until something is wrong. A computer, like a car, requires maintenance.

Nevertheless, we shouldn't accept this kind of behavior. Morford is correct when he says that we should demand Bill Gates's head for this kind of operation in software:

Here is your brand new car, sir. Drive it off the lot. Yay yay new car. Suddenly, new car shuts off. New car barely starts again and then only goes about 6 miles per hour and it belches smoke and every warning light on the dashboard is blinking on and off and the tires are screaming and the heater is blasting your feet and something smells like burned hair. You hobble back to the dealer, who only says, gosh, sorry, we thought you knew -- that's they way they all run. Enjoy!