Personally, I like the XP much better. But Vista is not bad. The problem in Vista, some soft does not work under it. And that soft is not available under Vista system.

i think is a win xp the best because is fixed all problem who have...And vista it's not supporting all games or pirate programs...

If you want my advice , here is a comparation :

*-* Linux is the most secure system , it is also : open-source witch means that it is free and its source code is available .
It is also updated every 2months (depends on your edition )
It had many desktop environments , a lot of them are amazing . and if you are a good programmer you can make your own desktop environment.
90% of the programs working on it are open-source too
There are some programs that let you open windows programs on it , I am thinking about :
-Wine : present in about all the editions
-Play on linux : http://www.yesgameonlinux.org/

*-*Windows Xp professional
I advise you to use it if you are not a linux pro or you don't want to leave windows
It can be safe 50% with a good antivirus.
It is not free you should have a liscence for it.

*-*Windows Vista :
Good only on the graphics and the transparent windows
Security is not clear.
It has many problems with the explorer.exe (trust me i close it and re run it about 10 times a day )
All your programs must be up to date to work on it , and some times they doesn't work even if they're updated !

Finally i think that you should get :
1- If you understand it : Linux
2- Win Xp Pro as an alternative system to linux

I hope that was the answer to your question

i perfere windows xp, mainly because i have it and i dont want to pay for vista right now. and another reason that i dont wont vista is because i know serveal people that say there is so much wrong with it, i have a friend that has a list 5 pages long of stuff he cant do with vista because it wont work right. so i'm kind afriad to get it, becaues i do to much on the computer and i dont want a buggy OS, but thats just me.

Would it be bad if i think you are talking from very limited experience? UAC for Vista is probably one of the best safety features ever implemented into a PC's OS. If your explorer.exe is failing it is user error, not computer.

Linux is the best choice if youhave extensive knowledge about open source and little money.

XP is the best choice if you are a hardcore gamer who doesn't want to shell out say... 2k for a computer.

Vista is the best choice if you want to be with the times, and have the processing / ram to handle it.

It is also the prettiest, and the best to run on a top-of-the-line monitor.


goodluck!

I gotta disagree on a couple of points here bro.

My mother in her late 60's managed to install and configure Ubuntu Gutsy on her machine and she is about as far from having "extensive knowledge about open source", as you can possibly get. Newer distros make it easier and easier to install, configure and use them all the time. Sure, she's only surfing the web and using emails, organizing photos etc. but hey, so are 90% of users out there. Programs like synaptic, actually make it easier to install new programs than it is in windows. No tedious web surfing to try and find that program that you want, the list is just there. And you can add more repositories all the time.
If you do run into trouble, the support online is phenomenal. There are 10's of thousands of sites and forums out there with folks more than willing to help, and you can guarantee that your question has been asked and answered somewhere before.

Next, have you ever seen compiz fusion running? If you are one of those people who loves special effects, and pretty OS's etc. It literally blows anything vista has to offer out of the water, and will happily run on half the specs. In fact beryl before it has been using the same effects that are "new" in vista for years. Honestly, just try it on Ubuntu, (or SUSE if you like rpm, I dont), or just go to youtube and type in compiz or something, there are plenty of vids out there as demos.

Finally, (and not directed at anyone in particular), programs like Crossover for Linux support the running of nearly 4000 windows apps, including Office, Photoshop, Quicken etc. Yes, it IS proprietry, but at $39 or $69 for pro, it is far less than the cost of a vista licence.
Cedega, allows the running of a ton of games on linux. For a list check out HERE. With more being added all the time. Cedega is a derivative of wine, which has already been mentioned here, which also supports a wide variety of apps and is something I use on my server every day.

I'm not trying to diss your choice of OS or anything mate, after all, each to their own, it just irks me sometimes that vista is plugged as some sort of supernatural deity in the OS world, when a lot of its newer implementations have been *ahem* appropriated *ahem* from linux...

Thats just my 2 cents anyway.

I'll agree with maddog on this one... Linux is vecoming easier and easier to install and configure... I remember the first time I installed Linux on my computer... It was Red Hat 7.0 I believe... It was A PAIN to do... Whe I installed Ubuntu 7.10, it went like a breeze... Everything works out of a box... The only thing not working is my Genius WebCAM Express II USB web camera, but hey, I didn't use it on wintendo (that's how my friend calls windows ) either

Evolution mail works great, it has RSS plugin so I can read news, VLC player plays all of my movies, and XMMS plays like a charm, OpenOffice let's me do everything I need, and Pidgin allows me to stay in touch with all my friends... My SBLive 5.1 works with full power, all 6 channels, thanks to ALSA...

Oh... And let me just say one thing I adore... Few months back, I boutgh a TFT 19" Widescreen... And wintendo couldn't run it in it's native resolution 1440x900... I thouoght I had to buy a new GFX card (I have nVidia GeForce4 MX440)... Display was all pathetic, and the image was stretched... In Linux, it installed nVidia Restricted Drivers, and now I see true widescreen, on 1440x900, i's native resolution, picture is very clear and sharp... I didn't have to install anything...

I truelly hope people will start to turn more and more to Linux, as it is far better than wintendo...

Beryl ran on my friends computer as smoothly as it gets... And his specs are a bit old... 1.6GHz CPU, 512 RAM, ATI card with 128MB GRAM... Vista wouldn't even install on it (had he wanted to install it)...

Someone said "bring back windows 3.11 for workgroups"... I say "yeah, bring it back!" It really IS waaay better than vista

I've used all type of windows many times and also Linux and Mac Leopard! I'd suggest you to stick with XP!! It works so amazingly fast if you don't put all sorts of crap on it, but you have to format your computer quite often, which is no problem for me. That is my suggestion, of course there is also your work, which is important, meaning that you have to know why you use your computer. Mac is as "they say" better for working with graphics, ... but on my experience it is not! Photoshop, dreamweaver, and everything else works better and faster on windows xp!

So yes, just stick with XP!