Hey, why don;t you try Linux. I know it sounds weird, but really, it's free, it doesn'tcrash, it can run on as little as a 200 mZh pentium with 8 mb of RAM. And as an added bonus, it is very easy to customize, http://www.kde-look.org is one website devoted to customizing just one of the many Desktop environments out there (linux word for shells ;))

Yeah, e-mail me at tah@canada.com for more info about what type of Linux is best for what you want to do, what programs you need, and other stuff like that.

You can run most of you Windows apps under linux too, so you needn't worry about that ;)