It's obvious that you don't know or understand what Target Disk Mode is,  have you in fact ever actually used an Apple PC?

Remote desktop is using one PC from another,  and that function is available on all platforms and is not a differentiating factor between Apple PCs and Windows PCs.

There is no equivalent in the Windows PC world to the functions that Target Disk Mode performs.   And to speak of OS features  (Target Disk Mode isn't an OS feature,  it's a Firmware/BIOS feature),  can you connect a external hard drive to a PC and do a full bootable backup of the PC,  then attach it to another PC and boot from that drive? (Basically migrate your entire PC...OS, Applications, Data and all...from one machine to another)  Apple PC's can do this.......and do it easily because the OS facilitates it. You can imagine how handy this is when you are having trouble with a machine yet need to keep working on a project,  or if you want to keep back ups that can be easily ported between machines/locations.   Apple PC's certainly aren't for everyone.....but an informed user would know the full extent of the features and limitations each solution encompasses,  and then make the decision that best meets their needs.

Target disk mode is still just 100% pointless.  Yes I have used an Apple PC.  And what you described about taking a backup on an external drive and then booting to it on another machine can be done on PC's as well.  Sure it may take some customizing, and it isn't practical at all (just like with Macs), but it can be done.  The only other real use for the TDM is for cloning a Mac, but with PC's it is incredibly simple to clone a machine and multicast it to hundreds of others all at once.

I wasn't saying that remote desktop was a distinguishing factor, I was saying that there is no point in connecting a Mac with another Mac via firewire, mounting the hard disk, and booting to it on the new machine.  It would be 10x easier if the Mac hardware wasn't so proprietary and all you had to do was move the hard drive from one machine to another rather than the entire machine.  The tasks you can do in TDM can be done with PCs in a much faster and easier fashion.

Everything you just stated is 100% incorrect.  I think your best bet is to spend some time at an Apple store or with a friend who has an Apple PC and learn about these technologies.  They are not only superior to anything currently available on Windows PC's,  they are incredibly easy and straight forward to use which brings very powerful capabilities to users of all skill levels.

They are still 100% pointless and similar things can be done on PCs with much greater ease.  TDM is a joke.  I have plenty of Mac laptops and desktops at my disposal and I can strongly attest to the uselessness of these technologies compared to the alternative methods that PCs use.

If you think I am wrong, give me some specific tasks that you do with TDM on a regular basis (or just occasionally), and I will tell you how I would do those on PC in a more efficient, fast, simple way, and offer suggestions of what Apple should have done instead.

I'm a dual owner. I have a nice gaming rig where I spend about half my gaming time. And I have a Mac for everything else.

For me they both serve a great, separate purpose. Being able to constantly customize my hardware at dirt cheap prices makes my PC a flexible gaming console. On the other hand I hate having to re-install Vista every six months because the registry goes to hell and it takes 5 minutes to boot. My Mac is pretty much the only machine I feel comfortable going online with thanks to the scourge of virus/worms/trojans that seem non-stop.

To me here is a breakdown:

Windows:
+Nice software library
+ flexible hardware
+ decent graphics drivers
- Ho-hum UI
- Registry- the slow progression from fast PC to slow PC to OS re-install and back again
- Poor build quality

Mac:
+ Slick OS that will complile many of my Linux apps
+ Quality, durable HW good support.
+ Security (excluding local hacks, which is a retarded argument)
- Not a full lineup of HW to choose from.
- So-so software variety
- Poor graphics drivers.


To me the biggest thing in the way of being 100% is the gaming situation, which has gotten a little better, and the hardware diversity which still sucks big time. For what they offer I find Macs to be relatively competitive with non homebuilt PCs. But they simply don't offer a model I would be interested. Give me a Mac Mini in a tower, with more slots (better GPU) for the same price and I'm sold. Heck I doubt it would even cost them more to make it since the Mini uses laptop components which are certainly more expensive.

I see you've conceded you're victory to MS.  Bravo..cuz your point is horrible...Apple/Mac has always been a known household name.  It's the only computers they had when I started in school....maybe for you young teenagers, 13-14 years old might not have known a lot about them, but everyone else was well aware of who they were.

Ah those were the days of elementary school. In fact, that's where I first learned to type and learned a little bit about using UI's. Our class would go outside the building and get on a big bus that had like 20+ macs inside.

Okay I'll bite one last time.  A user brings you a PC that will no longer boot.  They need some data off of the hard drive immediately for a meeting.  How would you get the data for the user without taking the computer part?  (This is scenario  I just handled the other day for a user.)

Please answer the question directly and do no inject personal opinion into the response or I will consider this a closed topic and the Apple solution the clear winner. 

They need it immediately for a meeting? A meeting I assume they are going to be traveling to without their PC since the PC won't boot and they just need the data?

I know this is slightly cheating since you said "without taking the computer apart", but with PC's it is so easy and doesn't really require full open surgery like a mac to get the hard drive out.

Ok, I pop open the side panel in 10 seconds, disconnect the SATA cable and power cable from the hard drive in 15 more seconds, unscrew any screws holding the hard drive in place in the case in another minute, and insert this hard drive into an external enclosure with USB 2.0 cord. I plug the drive in to my PC at the workstation to quickly confirm that you can read the data off the hard drive with another minute of my time, then hand him the external enclosure w/ his drive in it for his meeting.

So, after 3-5 minutes he has his data and can take it with him in a very convenient way and can access it on any PC he wants.

Since you made this such a dire need issue, I gave the fastest solution. If it was not an immediate issue I would troubleshoot and repair the non-booting issue. You also didn't give any possible reason for why it wouldn't boot, so basically as long as the boot failure was caused by anything BUT the hard drive itself, this would work best (and on a Mac would be very hard since the hard drives are not easily taken out). If the hard drive itself was the issue, it wouldn't matter what method you used because the data would likely be corrupt and lost by then.

EDIT:  I am sure that this is not what you wanted as my response, but since I did say that PCs had easier alternative methods for doing the same tasks, this was another chance to show you just how that might be the case.  PCs are so easy to take parts out and put new parts in, so it really erases the need for TDM to be used in data recovery for the issue you just described.  Thus proving my point I've been making this whole time.

Here's what I did:

This user brought me her laptop that was hanging on bootup.  So I took the unit and connected it to my desktop system with a firewire cable.  I then hit the power button on her laptop and held down the "T" key on the keyboard which brought the machine up in Target Disk mode about 15 seconds later,  it also immediately mounted the drive on my desktop system.  I asked her what file she needed and I navigated to the file on the remotely mounted laptop hard drive.  I asked her what she wanted done with the file,  and she asked me to print a copy and also put a copy on a thumb drive she handed me.   After a total of one minute since she handed me the laptop she walked out with a copy of her file and a copy outputting on the printer near her office.

I then ran a disk diag and repair on her remotely mounted laptop drive which corrected a drive error a few minutes later.  I then clicked off her machine,  disconnected her machine from mine and walked the machine back over to her office and put a note on it telling it her was all fixed.......all without ever opening the unit up.   

If that isn't easier then having to take a machine apart I don't know what is.