Shouldn't some of the credit go to the applications? For instance, on XP, I can check my email faster if I use Opera rather than outlook. If I disable services and start-up items it 'boots' faster. I can use VLC or quicktime alternative to view a movie file rather than windows media player or quicktime. It's hard to compare. If you run gimp or 7zip or something that can be run on both I guess you could do a direct comparison. about quicktime, why do you think Apple writes such terrible software for windows? Intentional to frustrate users or are they just not very good at it? Quicktime and itunes are awful and so bloated.