Now I can see how this thread went where it did. Let me make a few points, and then you can have the last word, which I'm sure you will.

No, the majority of processor time not devoted to mach3 goes towards keeping the other >30 processes (mostly unnecessary) and many other threads ticking over with background processes. This is obvious. 99.9% is a completely fabricated figure which doesn't reflect reality at all. Additionally just look at the idle CPU usage for a windows machine and then for a Linux machine: even when doing nothing on a high end machine, windows will struggle to flatline at 0, while linux won't.
None of this backs up your point about Windows interrupting Mach3, which it just doesn't do. If it did, Mach3 wouldn't be usable. There are a few well known applications that can wreak havoc with Mach3, and those are well documented (Quicktime is one). But those are not the fault of Windows.
Windows ME was released after windows 2k, and is very widely accepted to be exceptionally unstable, therefore your statement is wrong.
Windows ME??

I think that response pretty much sums up where your coming from.
Either you don't use windows very often, or you are extremely lucky.
I spend about 18 hours a day most days at a Windows PC. I have 7 at home, and use 2 at work. They are 100% stable, with the exception of Firefox being so bloated it can't run on a PC with 2Gigs of RAM at times.
Anyway, apparently you are under the impression that stability equates to lack of crashing.
And I said that where?

You said, Windows is known for its tendency to crash for no good reason.

I said that no, it doesn't crash.

Mach3 works fine, plain and simple. It doesn't work on all PC's, though, but neither does LinuxCNC. The Smoothstepper allows you to use a PC that might not normally work with Mach3. Back on topic.

(Sorry, guys)