The problem is there's that one thing that they need or the whole enterprise crashes in a ball of flame and it runs best on WinXP but will grudgingly run on Win7. And it will never, ever, EVER be ported to unix of any kind. I don't give the first fuck about my OS. But I've got about $10k worth of plugins for Pro Tools and it will never, ever, EVER be ported to unix of any kind. So here I am on Windows.
If you have Win7 and above, and really, REALLY need WinXP, tinker with the Windows Virtual machine software. If not Microsoft, VMWare has a free desktop VM wrapper, and do a few others. Save all your settings, load your software, back that file up. The VM machine dies? You got the OS ready to go. And that is the gist of the issue. Unless one or two people get together and do an open source clone on their own and get a project rolling, your stuff will never get ported. Example? Quicken. I've not yet found a decent Quicken clone for Linux. I'd use Mint.com if I was going to go that route. Also, netflix needs Silverlight, and that needs Windows or a WINE wrapper, which is more than mom and dad will do on their own. Another example? Civ6 is Windows only, and will most likely not be ported to Linux for years, if ever. So I use my Win8.1 Game box to play, and my dinky little Ubuntu box for playing youtube vids and music files when I am gaming. Guys like us that use our PC's for more than the basics are at the mercy of a small community, and that really sucks. But I've got about $10k worth of plugins for Pro Tools and it will never, ever, EVER be ported to unix of any kind.