I just built a new computer (Athlon64 X2 6000+, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB HD, Radeon X1600 512 MB PCIe x16) and am somewhat annoyed that Windows XP 32-bit can't handle all 4 GB of RAM... So I was thinking of picking up a copy of Vista; I've heard that it has improved a bit since it was first released but was wondering which edition would be best for my use. Aside from BOINC (duh!) I will be using this computer mostly for gaming; there may be a few other Windows-only tasks that I use it for, but most of my work and daily-use gets done on my G4 Mac Mini. I assume I don't want the vanilla Home Basic, but am wondering what the $30-40 difference between Home Premium and Business would ge me, in terms of features that I would actually make use of.
If I do end up getting Vista, I would be interested in putting it on my 15" MacBook Pro 2.4 also... Like the desktop, I use Windows XP Pro SP3 through Boot Camp when I'm on the go and want to play games. The difference here, is that I use VMWare Fusion from within OS X 10.5.6 to run Windows (from the Boot Camp partition) for work programs and other stuff. I'm sure that the MBP can handle Vista just fine on its own, but how is its performance in VMWare Fusion? I currently have the default 512MB allocated to the XP Virtual Machine, which seems to be just enough for the few Windows programs I need for work purposes. I assume I'd need to increase the memory dedication for Vista, which would decrease the memory available to other OS X programs and BOINC... Would the best solution be to upgrade the Boot Camp partition to Vista, and then create a new virtual machine for XP and work programs?
I've delayed getting into Vista, because of all the bad press it got, and lately most of my work is done on Mac. Hopefully, the horror stories are either unsubstantiated or have been fixed by SP1 and other patches. At work, the official standpoint is that we don't want anything to do with Vista, and will wait for Windows 7 if an upgrade is needed, although we still use Windows 2000 on some systems and used Windows 95/98 for a long time.