Hope this helps

1) Source code will be available . Tomorrow if you wish you can edit and make you own package or Operating system. all linux os comes different company (LIndows , Lycoris, Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake, Knopping, Slackware).all windows version comes from Microsoft :-)

2) Have more options to secure the system. If you are good admin you can perfectly make it secure.

3) Linux architecture make it more secure. Where windows all in managed by registry. as i said above point security is based on admin who manage OS.

why windows get affected always ? simple 90% of desktop users use windows. So there people to exploit this. they will install all applications :-) and open himself into security risk.

4) save money . for windows u need to pay for OS then for support (support cost u high)

5)stable. windows need many reboot as part of each application or updates. Many of my linux servers still up running for 2 yrs :-). As far there is no hardware problem linux run's perfect.

6)migration simple - since all considered as files - just copy and paste make things work.

Mint + xfce is a good choice.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

and

http://www.xfce.org/download

try this

1) # pgrep crond
2)if not running
check /etc/init.d/ for crond daemon
then try to start it
#/etc/init.d/crond start

CIFS runs over TCP/IP but uses the SMB protocol . This is supported both on linux and windows.
this helps to share data vise versa.

In linux you need to install Samba that helps CIFS to run.

SMB share point can be mounted in different ways based on the way its setup on the server

my suggestion would be try centos as we all know 75% public webservers run on centos. Most of the webhosting companies use centos.

How you are trying to install ? are you installing using root ?

If you question is about reseting root password try below url thats shows how to login single user mode. Or if u want try new opensource OS I would suggest ubuntu or mint.

If none above , let me know what your real question :)