Picked this up from Luke Drumm. I think he is right on both counts, Apple and Microsoft. Apple first, I can’t stand quick-time, its extremely lame on Windows and I basically refuse to watch QuickTime content – I am even more determined now that it downloads a whole heap of iTunes crap which I just don’t want – I noticed yesterday that it runs a background process to do things like detect the iPod when it gets connected (presumably).
Now Microsofts turn. Really only core OS or critical component driver updates should require reboots. With most external devices its possible stop and start the device cleanly. USB has definatley helped here. I also think that its the partners fault to a certain extent – some of the software packages aren’t well constructed and say they need a reboot when they really don’t (its because they have evolved from Windows 3.1 installers :P).