Mankind has made some wonderful advances...

[Thatcherite]

We have put a man on the moon, GPS, the internet, the microwave, the automobile, probes to the planets, the train, air travel! So why can't we install software without having to reboot the sm3gging system?!

[LazyGun]

Even when we are able to depart the solar system in majestic star cruisers, bestriding the universe in minutes and hours like cultures out of popular science fiction, I suspect we will still be faced with a system reboot for certain upgrades ;)

[ChuckFickens]

Generally speaking you don't *really* need a reboot for most things. but it's far easier to make the average user do a reboot then to get them to stop and restart all the relevant services.... also everyone realises that restarting their computer stops it doing anything for a few minutes, trying to make users understand that restarting services will stop the associated feature working for a short while would be a nightmare.

[wildwood]

There doesn't seem to be much software around that needs(?) a restart now, compared with a few years ago. Most of those that do can be left until you logoff or go to make a cuppa.

[methyl]

This is really a Microsoft design issue wherby the individual process restart process is far from perfect when software has changed. It's to do with the process cache mechanism (which IMHO is pointless on modern systems).

We can go years without rebooting certain non-Microsoft systems.