Windows Versions & Vista

It is really a matter of choice. There are a lot of people that swear by XP. But Microsoft will deprecate it eventually because they have superceded it with Vista. SP3 is also being released next week I believe.

For Vista it depends on the system you have. A rule of thumb is that Vista 32bit is supported on all systems and x64 only on Mac Book Pro and newer systems.

I had a 2 hr discussion with a mac expert recently. you should def choose XP bc since vista is brand new windows still hasn't gotten all the kinks out of the system yet. It is also more prone to viruses than XP. You can always upgrade to vista later in the future though.

Hi vasanakay,

I am afraid you are mistaken. There are very few Vista specific viruses, as most WIndows viruses target WIndows, not a specific version. Vista was written from the ground up to be a secure operating system, and in fact is so secure that it constantly nags the user. I agree that XP is the better choice for Boot Camp, but not for the issue of viruses. Vista is a large operating system, and it takes close to 12 GBs of diskspace, which means that if you only made a 32-GB partition for Windows, you will have the disk almost half full. Plus, Vista needs at least 2 GBS of RAM, and the more the better, while XP flys with only 1 GB.

I've used both with Bootcamp on Mac. A factor these days I think is XP is nearing its life cycle and may be less supported by MS and independent development:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

On a Macbook Pro (from current range) I think that long-term there is an advantage of installing 64-bit Vista. The main reason is that this will allow the Intel Core 2 Duo to run in 64-bit mode, and I think long-term this is where development will focus for Vista, though I'd have to admit short-term there isn't likely much benefit over a 32-bit Vista installation.

I would add to that and say I've been using Vista x64 for 18 months, 64-bit should even be more secure, and as long as it is patched, updated, and you have AV (Kaspersky is what I settled on after reading and trying out a few other program suites).

OS X is also a work in progress and Vista Ultimate works very well.

XP SP3 is suppose to bring security features UP to more like Vista.

Ars review of security programs for Windows, Linux, OS X
http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/five-security-apps-linux-osx-windows.ars

For gaming you are probably best with XP or Vista 32-bit at the moment. As to which one, a lot of major software titles will have been developed primarily with Xp in mind, and if you look at this framerate comparison between XP and Vista for example XP does come up with a slightly faster frame rate for many games:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTE3ODAxMDUyMnpRY0pEeTlDZXpfNl8xX 2wuZ2lm

As software (games) are rewritten, and developers are flocking to quad core and above to reduce time for development, better threading and memory management show that Vista x64 can and will work 'just fine.'

Anyone remember the move from Mac OS 9 to OS X? sometimes I hear all the complaints and brings back memories.

Also, Apple's support for 32-bit and only 2GB (or 1.9GB) can and will be a problem with games and how XP addressing works when you are looking at graphics cards with 512MB reducing available memory and hitting the wall.
http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3034

With a Mac Pro I found Vista Ultimate x64 to be a no-brainer and only version of Windows that would support the hardware fully.

People using modern hardware that is 64-bit don't seem to complain much.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2280808,00.asp

For OP the choice for gaming is to optimize system for their favorites. They haven't given us a list, but I think many of the most popular PC games have code in 32-bit binaries, so Vista 64-bit may not deliver for them. But, as I write above longer term this will surely change.

Anyone remember the move from Mac OS 9 to OS X? sometimes I hear all the complaints and brings back memories.

I don't quite understand the analogy, over the OS 9 to OS X transition most Macs were PPC G3/G4 (both supporting 32-bit), and OS X itself didn't support 64-bit until Tiger (5 years almost after OS X public beta beta).

I think an issue with PC game development is that in order to ensure maximum sales, they tend to be behind the cutting edge hardware and leading edge of the OSs features. That said for the long-term OP may well wish to consider a move to Vista 64-bit at some point for their Macs Bootcamp.

That's a trickier question and your best bet is to check the software publishers to see what their exact support is. Another route is to simply try Vista 64-bit and see.

So, are we agreeing that Windows Vista 64-bit will work on a MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Penryn? Which is better... Boot Camp? Parallels? Or something else? I will be running OS X 95% of the time and don't really want to reboot if I just need it for a few minutes or so...