Despite potential negetive votes, I'd like to state that Windows IS a first-class citizen in the GNU/open-source/Perl world. There are enough windows fans out there to keep it almost neck-and-neck with .+nix in terms of ported and GPL code - mose .+nix utilities have been ported, CYGWIN and pcap exist. What I'm trying to say is that there is no need yet to abandon the platform unless you hate Bill.