@Peter Gathercole
All mainstream distros on mainstream hardware will do pretty much everything a home user would want to do out of the box, with the possible exception of patent restricted file formats, and there is no way in hell that you can blame the Linux community for that problem.
Agreed ... up to a point.
Unfortunately there are some specific pieces of hardware and software that require Windows, and any user who wants or needs to use one of those has to use Windows.
In my case -- I can't update my TomTom SatNav without Windows because TomTom Home only runs on Windows (even though the TomTom device itself runs Linux), I can't use the software provided with my Canon DSLR without Windows, and I can't use my copy of the MemoryMap OS mapping software without Windows. In the latter two cases a VM is OK (but I still need a licensed copy of Windows to run in it) but the TomTom software is happier when it can connect to a real (non-virtualized) USB port. For these, I keep an old P4 box running XP.
The problem is that there is no incentive for TomTom, Canon, and MemoryMap to produce Linux versions of their tools because they can pretty-much expect that any potential customer has access to a Windows PC. As long as that remains true Windows will be the OS of choice for everyone who runs only a single PC.
On the bright side, I can use my old 16-bit Windows copy of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary under Wine on my 64-bit Linux box, whereas 64-bit Windows won't run 16-bit software at all.