Which operating system do you prefer?

[JuliaL]

So I voted for XP. It is the last OS from Microsoft where I have full CDs available for re-installs.  It is where I got off the treadmill and I don't stay current.

That's just incorrect. When my company bought a copy of Windows 7 a few years back we got a CD with the OS on it. Are you talking about buying a computer from scratch and receiving the OS install CD, because that's not the fault of Microsoft, that's generally the decision of the computer manufacturer (e.g. Dell).

I have XP on half a dozen machines on my home network and have never paid more than $30 for a desktop with OS or $40 for a laptop. 

If you are still running XP then you are really asking for trouble. Microsoft aren't releasing updates for XP anymore, and that's been the case for over a year now.

My bolds.

I do not have install media for 7 or subsequent.  I didn't mean to say no media could be had. 

What trouble did you have in mind?
Most of the problems I've had with Windows have come from the disk bloating backups resulting from update.  One machine I recently purchased (from a local school system) had an 80Gbyte drive 35Gbytes of which was taken up with crap accumulated via Windows update.  I have every confidence that that was why they ditched it, it ran out of room for applications.  How big is your %windir%\Installer directory?

The computer that I cannot afford to have compromised runs Linux, is fully current  and spends ~99% of the time powered off and physically disconnected from the network.  If that can be hacked, I'd like to know how.

If you are suggesting that Microsoft spends any time worrying about providing me with reliable software or protecting my data, all I can do is laugh.  I'm not worried about XP not being updated.  Some day I may be forced to move on or completely drop Windoze.  Computers are not that important to me.