I"ve put in a few systems using touchscreens; they're generally quite durable, being made for point-of-sale systems mostly, most use a mouse driver for Win98/2000/XP and plug in either by USB or a mouse port. If they fail calibration, though, it's pretty much done for except as just a display. I've only have one or two actually fail calibration, though. Calibration, in this case, is just a series of targets you hit with your finger to line up the system. The failure is something to do with the geometry failing to map out the whole screen consistently; the top half lines up, the bottom goes all over the place..
The newer you get, the better, as the quality has improved over time. ELO touchsystems are the ones I mostly encounter, but any number of manufacturers can be involved in the components themselves.