It's not just Windows that has wonkiness - my Mac has less, but it can be very strange. For instance: I have a USB iMic which provides a line in/out. I use that to record podcasts on the Mac, and I also use it on Windows when I record audio for "Smalltalk Daily". Here's the weird part: sometimes, when I unplug the iMic from the USB hub on the Mac, the Mac decides "whoops, not only is there no iMic, there's no external Maxtor drive". Since that's where all the iTunes stuff lives, it's very annoying. The solution is to unhook the USB cable to the drive (generating an error message), and then hooking it back up.