XP Quote from: Jek Hawkins on February 24, 2008, 09:28:20 AM

OK well here are my two BITS...

ALL OF THIS IS IMHO

Of the 3, Mac OS is the most reliable and the most powerful: I have not used X Leopard, but I have used other versions of X, all of which are tremendously reliable and next to impossible to kill (100% bulletproof), something that Windows systems are not

NOW, you must realize that Apple builds its computers to be PERFECTLY in harmony with the software, something that is not so easy on Windows-base machines, since there are so many combinations of hardware in any single computer build...

As such, given an option, I will say MAC OS X

The original question was XP or vista, so I will address this-again all IMHO

XP all the way-because I like to be in control of my computer, XP far beats out vista, which is substantially more (and far FAR too much IMO) automated than xp-similarly, I've found that xp machines are tremendously more reliable than vista machines, probably owing to the age of the OS (more time, more revision) and to the fact that vista just takes a bit too much too quickly

let me explain

ok, so vista is nice looking and all, and the sidebar is a cool addition but did you ever take into account the amount of POWER the features take? A number of CS and SE majors at FIT have seen repeated crashes of the vista window-graphics generator so that they are left with horrid-looking window appearances that cannot be rectified-to make matters worse, the problem happens often and sporadically, so one moment the windows are nice and clean, then the next they are BLECCH

sidebar, LIKEWISE, cool idea, TRYING to mimic the mac dashboard, but failing miserably since even a few applications in the sidebar is enough to take better than half of an average computer's processor power

but let me get to the point, since i could continue my rant forever...

MAC > XP > VISTA

bottom line:

MAC:

easiest to work with, most reliable, USER HAS TREMENDOUS CONTROL

most expensive bc macs are built to the OS

XP:

features games that MAC doesn't have ** just a note, EXCELLENT RELIABILITY compared to vista, looks decent and takes much less CPU power overall, very compatible, portable across many many systems, mixes automatic and manual functions well

might be too common (high risk for virus?), of the 3 it looks the worst

vista:

looks great, almost EVERYTHING automated, very idiotproof

vexes fans of actual computer CONTROL, horridly unreliable, like 98 1st ed. fragile as heck, my laptop ran out of power 1x, completely and utterly ruined the OS, still fixing problems and discovering new ones X.X

Some of this may be interpreted as accurate...mostly conjecture and opinion though.
What are you running now ? ?

How long have you had Vista ? ?