[m45t3r]

> Most Linux installers already had a good GUI installer on the Live CD at that point.

Yes, I think between the end of Windows XP and start of Windows Vista era is interesting because it is by that era when Linux installers got really good (they're full graphical and would be really easy, most times just pressing Next->Next->Finish) while Windows still had its ugly TUI installer.

Also, Windows at that time didn't ship with as many drivers as today, and also we didn't have as fast internet and Windows Update still did a poor job for installing drivers from random devices, so most of time after installing Windows you had a pretty poor installation with broken internet/audio/graphics and also possibly weirdly slow (because missing chipset drivers would make the system slow depending on the hardware). While Linux if you had reasonably supported hardware it would just work.

Not that this really matters. Installation of a new OS is something that was and still is mostly done by knowledge people, and generally those people can install either Windows or Linux regardless.