I would agree that many of the "problems" people face with Windows are caused by using root privileges. I only have one Windows box that I never power on, but I recently left a system admin company for which I was one of the chief Windows consultants. Because most of our systems were distributed for medical purposes, many of them had restricted accounts, only able to access one part of a hard drive, able to access a few select programs (with which Windows Media Player was not one), etc.

However, about a year ago (I left the company four months ago) we started to see an influx in rootkit problems. Our technical support department was constantly bringing me new programs that were being used, etc. In an effort to be proactive to stop the rootkit/spyware combination, I googled "Windows rootkit" to find what was out there. Try it. While MANY of your system problems will be cured by tweaking Windows in a "user mode", not all of them will be fixed.

Common sense is the best policy. Be careful what you click on, etc. I have friends who have great, stable Windows boxes that they have used for a long time. They work great. I use linux, and it took me much longer to get my systems up and running than it did theirs (of course, I have to tweak everything perfectly...)