I Dualboot XP Pro x32 + Vista Professional x64 at work, Dualboot Vista Business x32 and XP Pro x32 at home, and Dualboot Vista Professional x32 and Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop.

I have found no problems with Vista, nor have I really had any reason to boot into XP in months. Vista runs absurdly faster than XP in terms of interface and launching programs. I like how if a program becomes unstable, it just isolates it in a little security bubble. I shut down all the excess crap on my home and laptop machines, but left it on the work machine. It's snappier but a bit less secure, but I'm not an idiot so I have no worries. In the past 2 years I've run one virus/spy/malware scan (recently) and found 0 crap in over a terabyte of space.

My Boss is a Mac fanboi but I've personally found nothing compelling to switch to it for. I personally like the way Ubuntu looks and feels and Compviz Fusion is an amazing interface addition that puts OSX and Aero interface to shame. It's excellent. Quite fast, much snappier, no crashes, instant hardware recognition (for my laptop), instantly functional networks that reads both Mac and Win networks without a hitch.

I use Vista for all my multimedia needs (3D and 2D modeling, Games, so on) and I use Ubuntu for all my Office needs for school and such. Ubuntu boots up and shuts down faster than Vista but it lacks good support for my main programs like Maya, Max, Adobe Creative Suite, Zbrush, Games and so on. It's a great quick and speedy OS for doing primitive things and it's extremely functional and customizable. Ubuntu reminds me of a good mix of WinXP and OSX with additions to functionality and interface at the cost of multimedia functionality.

Apple charges way too much for their limited software support and excessively overpriced hardware. I use OSX at work all the time and I'd recommend Ubuntu over OSX for office apps and shit since it's FREE and it works with your already existing PC hardware. Unless you have money to blow and just like Apple, go for it, if not Ubuntu is a great middleground alternative. Vista is a good, well-rounded OS, that runs everything you can throw at it with ease. The only requirement is to NOT have a piece of shit computer. The majority of complaints I hear from Vista owners are from those who are trying to run it on their pre-Vista systems. A dual-core and 2GB ram is more than enough to run Vista and it's dirt cheap nowadays anyway.

Just my 2 Cbills.

It's all just preference at this point.

An OS does what you need it to do and just like any software, whether it's a 3D package or an Operating System, they each have their strengths and weaknesses. Vista is strong all around, OSX is strong in it's own specialized way and Linux has it's own strengths.

I have to argue this with my boss all the time. He thinks that because I don't have any use whatsoever for OSX that I hate Apple, which isn't quite true, it's just useless and redundant to me and serves no purpose except to limit my choices in hardware and software. For my purposes, buying a Mac is paying more for less. Not the same case for everyone, as you stated, doing engineering it's the better platform for your purposes while doing multimedia development Vista is my preference.

I Agree.
It is quite amusing.

Just to let you know, you can go from 32 bit XP to 64 bit Vista...it's what I did....

As far as Mac being overpriced--well, it is.  Sorry.  When you are putting a lot of the same hardware (from the same vendors) in a system as Dell and what not, you have no business charging up to 40% more.  Yes, Mac does use some extremely high quality parts like the motherboards and a few other bits and pieces, but the processors and the RAM are from a lot of the same vendors you find in PC makers, yet they charge more for them when you build your own Mac.  It's the only real complaint I have with them.  Do I like OSX, nope...but that's just a preference, it's stable and it looks pretty, but I find it counter-intuitive for trouble shooting.

A lot of my friends think I hate Mac, but really, just a lot of the things they do tick me off.  For instance, why the devil can't we have a built in optic drive and removable battery in the MacBook Air?  And don't tell me there isn't room because IBM did it with their competitive system, and VoodooPC did it even better with theirs.  Why isn't there a number pad on their 17" laptops?  I mean, the 17" laptop I'm typing on now has one, and I love it.  In any case, I don't hate Mac, I just prefer my PC.

Besides, if you build the PC yourself and know what you're doing when you pick the parts, you'll have a system with superior hardware to just about any computer on the market (PC or Mac).    I know when I bought the hardware for my PC that I built a year ago, you couldn't even get a Mac with my stuff in it.  (they didn't even have drivers to support my 8800 GTX at the time).  So, what should you take away from my overly long post?  Build your own computer, screw pre-built PC's and Macs...hahaha...

If you are solely interested in performance at the best price point, build it yourself.  If your needs swing to wanting a solidly engineered system that will probably last much longer than you will use it, then consider Apple.  I have a PowerMac G4 that I bought back in 2001.  To date it is still the best engineered system I have ever seen as far as internal layout and component quality goes.  Granted, it won't run that latest version of MacOS X but that is not because it does not have the horsepower.  I have been considering a new iMac for all my non-computationally intensive applications and non-gaming needs but the price is still more than I am willing to pay at this point.

Performance and engineering wise, you can do much better with buying individual components (if you know what you're doing) than you could with a Mac.  I built a home-made system in '01 that I finally upgraded last year and it ran fine--my brother was using it and he wanted more gaming capability, hence the upgrade.

I also have a Gateway laptop from '01 that still works....it was a graduation present.  It sure as crap wouldn't run Vista though!    Seriously though, I can build a more powerful PC than any Mac you could buy for at LEAST a thousand dollars less that will last every bit as long.  Hence my pet peeve with Mac.  Heck, the same goes for Dells.  I built a PC for a kid a while ago that cost him about $1,400...the comparable Dell priced out at $2,800 if I recall correctly.  That's craptastic.

QMav, I was not referring to the quality of components, I was referring to quality evident in engineering of the entire solution.  Open an older PowerMac and you can see how well it was designed as a whole.

You will notice that I am not mentioning their newer hardware.  If there was any hope that Apple would lower their prices once they switched to a more mainstream architecture, those hopes were quickly dashed.