After rebooting our exhibit in the City Gallery a few times, I have decided NEVER to use Microsoft Windows again for a public installation. Despite the fact that it's running on a fine little machine (Shuttle), and works fine on any Mac OSX, on Windows XP you get all kinds of trouble. In my case you're talking about a pretty normal multimedia file (Flash), about 230 Meg. EVen when everything seems to be running smooth, suddenly the evil Microsoft stuff pops up a dialogue that perhaps we need a Windows Update! No, no and no again.
So, from now on, if we're putting up machines in public installations, it should be Linux or OSX.
Goodbye Mr Gates. May you rot in reboot hell.