Theoretically, Windows should never crash on you, provided you have enough hardware to support what you’re trying to accomplish. (You can’t make a respectable video editing workstation out of an older machine with 128 Mb of RAM.) For the record, my WinXP machine never crashes on me.

A big problem is that, in my experience, people who routinely crash their Windows machines seem to be incapable of taking the hint that they are DOING IT WRONG. If you have seventeen different programs running all at once, you are basically begging your CPU to have a stroke.

Patience is, now more than ever, a virtue. “Come on! Load, you b******!” is something I’ve uttered more than once myself, but if your machine is consistently and reliably slower than molasses in an igloo… you have two options. 1) Get a new machine. 2) Put on your big boy/girl panties and get used to it.

I was indoctrinated into Windows as a teenager because we used a network of iMacs at my elementary and middle schools, which had roughly the computing power of an abacus. I wouldn’t object to learning how use an Mac machine, but I have long since become comfortable with working around Windows’ flaws (which includes ignoring the fact that Vista ever existed). I would probably not switch over even if I thought Mac was a far more efficient system.

My Mac never crashes on me. Ever.

My other issue is plug and play. I plug a peripheral to my Mac, and it works. Period. No fussing, no sweating. It just works. Not so with our Windows machines at work. It’s a toss up from day to day as to whether it will work when all the stuff is turned on. If I bring my Mac laptop in and plug the projector into that, it works fine. If I use the school’s computer (Win) with the same projector it will work one day and not the next. Or I might get video but no sound. It’ll take me a good 15-30 minutes of fussing with it before I can start class (good thing for me I get to work at 7am).

It gets old quick.

mary ann vs ginger.

and JoT told us is it now “kirk vs picard vs kirk 2.0″. http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1242.html

I’m now using 4 different OSes on all my laptops & PC: Winders XP Home, Ubuntu 8.04, Ubuntu 9.04, and Winders 7 RC1. I’ll probably buy Winders 7 when it comes out (unless they screw it up between now and then).

Overall, as a person who has used Windows all the way back to Win3.5, FreeBSD, Linux and its derivative Ubuntu, as well as MacOS from 3-X, I have to say the best experience I have had was on MacOS. Now as for Stoney’s first part of his comment, I have to agree, each one offered its pros, but it also offered its cons. But imo those pros and cons varied depending on the user. where as I find windows limiting in music production quality that I get from MacOS or Ubuntu. Windows availability is better for any games. Although this is no longer so mainstream, since the inclusion of intel processors I’m seeing more and more coming to the MacOS. Ubuntu, well I couldn’t do much except music work, as we go back to availability, there isn’t just that much.

All in all, it is the user in the end, and whatever they choose, thats what they use. I always recommend a unix based OS, so MacOS or Linux, and in most cases my friends will listen. However, the mac is costly, can only be used on their hardware, the pc is cheap, you can build it from scraps, but not many ppl know Linux/Ubuntu so they go the Windows route. In the end the option is theirs.

May as well throw in my 2 cents. Linux is almost always my first choice for the average home user, since they don’t need the super power functions of MS Office (Google docs, or OpenOffice.org work fine), and Ubuntu is inexpensive and easy to setup and maintain without being as easily susceptible as Win. On the other hand, since most pcs still come with Win preinstalled many of my clients want it reinstalled after crashes, even if it costs them…