CATIII-NDB,
Indeed. I agree with you. XP SP3 was a great OS. Vista should have NEVER been released. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, and so therefore hopefully Windows 8 will reflect the true next generation Microsoft set out to create all those years ago.
Lots of people fail to understand Apple and the OS X platform and are apparently only capable of throwing childish "fanboy" comments out in Apple's direction, but it's my platform of choice at PC level for myself. None of the Linux lark comes anywhere near the refinement of OS X, and Apple's hardware is top notch.
On servers .... a decent BSD or Linux release. But sometimes there's no escaping Windows.