> Our users are computer illiterate. If a function on the computer takes too
> long, they will hard boot the machine. If anything looks like being any
> kind of problem, they will hard boot the machine. And when I say hard boot,
> I mean they will physically switch off the machine.

Ok, the problem does depend on the uses, not the OS-manufacturer.

Under such circumstances an Linux-Workstation would not be better.

> We have not found any major impact on speed. At least, no impact that our
> users will notice and complain about. Our largest production DB at this
> time is over 200 MB.

I did only little testing on my old NT 4.0 machine, on this I did see
an dramatic slowdown and I did head the harddrive working continuously.

> 1. There was a clean power source
> 2. There was a UPS

Certainly the probability of an power-fail should be minimal. In SA an
UPS might be required.

> 3. I could trust the OS

I can imagine that an MS-Server-OS is trustable - if used and
maintained as server.

> 4. I could trust the hardware.
> 5. I could trust the users.

That's thrue presumabls I will configure databases differently for
different countries.

Elmar