I don’t know how people choose their OS from but for me I choose Windows Vista 32-bit for my primary machine. Why? You’ll know from the listing below–important thing always comes first.

1. Software compatibility — this is the biggest issue of me since the first day Office 2007 arrived, I found myself stay away from Linux or any other OS more and more. It’s not about the ribbon tab interface, but only one program in 2007 suite. Many of you guys may know now. It’s OneNote 2007. Dude, that’s an awesome piece of software on the earth. It makes Windows distinguish from others indeed, at least for me. That’s only a few programs that are not cross-platform I use but now I can’t live without it.
2. Hardware compatibility — If you buy something on the street but can’t use it, it’s a problem, isn’t it? who will argue me about this? drivers for Linux, yes they are better but, as long as reality is concerned, they are out of Microsoft’s league. Mac OS, huh? don’t even think of this. Talking about 64-bit hardware, since AMD released its first 64-bit CPU around 2003 (5 years ago), now they might realize that they have made a huge mistake having backward-compatible with 32-bit instructions. That’s what Intel followed and has made the world still doesn’t care about 64-bit much because 32-bit system still is working very well. 64-bit system is great–fast, nice but you can’t just simply pop some old cards into 64-bit system.
3. Friends — this also is a big factor. If you are only one using Mac in your workplace and are not tech savvy, you’ll know what I mean. I do think of myself in that situation; I would argue that I can do everything Windows people can, but for docx, xlsx, pptx file I would have no idea what folks around talking about for a year, then I realize it’s new version of office suite file and can open them. You can’t just always let anybody save in backward compatible type.

From all 3 factors above, choices will come down to 2 which are Windows 32-bit & 64-bit. For friend factor, they look alike & work the same, so nothing to worry about. For hardware compatibility issue, they are almost on par for both systems nowadays (if you don’t have such a rare item, you won’t find any trouble with 64-bit anyway) However, the problem comes down to software compatibility. You still have to use 32-bit browser to watch flash contents; you still have to use many 32-bit software. Although they are running flawlessly under 64bit system, one thing I found it wouldn’t work is OneNote. They are no OneNote virtual printer for 64-bit system. It’s just a deal breaker to me. Yet there is no one to blame since we all are okay embrace older system while we all already have newer stuff around. That’s just why we haven’t had a big step forward. I mean 64-bit system is getting better and better now but if you have to put more effort to get things work and result are the same, why wouldn’t we go easier route for now? Then when things have changed, so can we. This is how and why I choose 32-bit Windows as my main operating system.

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This is a very interesting topic in my opinion since I were on both side and I still have doubt how I am going to deal with my every new laptop/desktop. However, I think I have a point for folks who want to settle this confusion.

Firstly, I never thought of using My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, and My whatever Microsoft named it. I think it’s kind of stupid saving files in them because the real path is such a pain. From Windows 95 until Windows XP, it looks like this:-

C:\Document and Setting\<username>\My Documents

It’s just simply too hard to type, remember, and use. I ended up storing things in somewhere like:

D:\<xxx>

Unfortunately, I still ended up with filling My Documents and mostly My Pictures with a bunch of stuffs because some programs–Office, all photo viewer or music management–just use those values as a default and changing the location every time is not fun at all. The real problem is when I wanted to reinstall an OS, I needed copy a backup of those directories. Then after I was all set with new OS, I just wanted those directories to be neat and clean, then waited until I had enough time to organize. Eventually, those sets of “My Documents” backup are still on the same place–never make it to where it should.

I might be like you, or not at all, but I really like what Microsoft have done with Vista especially Tablet features and how it organize all this folder. Their names are much easier to find and recognize:

C:\Users\<username>\Documents

So, I have less reasons not to follow this type of organization and surely I gave them a shot. Then, I’d better start previewing both solutions.

1. Stick with one: I believe that this is most people do because you don’t have to do anything with it; just normal. However, if your system corrupted, it’s over. That case doesn’t happen every day though.

2. Better have two: This is what I believe it’s so good since I mostly re-install my OSes every month–don’t ask why; it’s just fun maybe at that time–and use multiple OSes in the same machine–that’s an obvious reason: I can’t afford to buy 2-3 machines and learn them one-by-one. At that time, you have to remember that Linux could not handle NTFS this well, so FAT32 is just a practical solution; nonetheless, it has very bad limited which is a 4GB largest file. I couldn’t bare using to store some image files I have. Finally the easy way is using FAT32 partition as a storage for every OSes. This way I have no problem finding files I want anymore and more importantly, OS crashes, breaks, or doesn’t work anyhow; you just reinstall it. All your files are still there at the same old place. Don’t think of more than 2 storage partition, I don’t think it’s a better solution.

Up to now, it seems that one dedicated partition for storage has only advantages over a single partition. Let’s see why single partition is more than enough nowadays.

• You will get dynamic size of storage for both system & data — that’s what we really concerned since the more we have grown, the more storage is required. It’s like we could fill up 120GB in a year while 40GB is like an infinity several year ago.
• Not only you get dynamic size of storage, you will have less confusion of where you stored your data as well since everything will pack in C:\User\<username>\*.*
• Multiple OSes? no problem, with NTFS-3g which improved both reading and writing abilities, Linux doesn’t have any problem or trouble accessing data in NTFS again. Thus, if you want to do multiple OSes, just think of main OS you are going to use which mostly we ended up with Windows since hardcore Linux users will use it as only OS anyway. Then we just let Windows in bigger partition and store data in it. You’ll never have problem of unable to access them.
• Backup solutions are variety — with the backup program like Norton Ghost, Acronis, Vista Backup & Restore, Windows Home Server, or just creating a duplicate on another drive. These programs are very useful if you data are the thing you concerned. Once you have a backup, you know you will not lose data. I know it’s the way more expensive, but wait! it’s safer and more reliable than storing in the same drive–no pain, no gain. If you are in the case of reinstalling OS for fun, you can partially restore only files you want anyway. This is highly recommended!

By the way, do not think I’m convincing you to use this way. I’m okay with both, but these days I need my machine to be more reliable than before. I am not dare to play with every stuffs I possibly find; I’m so tried of installing any OSes every two weeks or month. So this is the way I believe it’s good for me now. Just so you know, I run Vista Business & Xubuntu on my X61T, my data are mostly in Windows’ partition, it’s working beautifully like my old days with many partitions. All in all, if you want your data to be safe, both ways are the same, but you can increase reliability of your data by having a backup.

The problem is choice…you decide it

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