Vista is nice.. Its meant for the looks... Now, why do people say it is bad? Well in a few weeks/months you will notice how slow it gets after using it. I have vista on this computer and it is extremely slow.. And I take care of it and do regular upgrades, scans, and all... Now Windows 7... I think its meant for both looks and performance
I own my own shop for four years. I know graphics. In a previous life, I worked for Silicon Graphics and Pixar. Worked in television for 10 years and film for about the same. There are few uses for Photoshop that Gimp can't do just as well on the web.
I don't believe you used GIMP at Pixar... lol I tried really hard to use GIMP but it takes longer and isn't organized at all. No group layers or anything.
We didn't use Photoshop either. It must have been a while since you used it but, to tell the truth, I don't mess with the graphics anymore and it's been a while for me to argue that point. I never found it took longer or was disorganized and grouping layers...um...I forgot.
Open Source Applications for video editing are apparently good. Never tried them though. I have used the most recent version of GIMP. A lot of improvements have been made but they need simple things like group layers. They have a group layer plugin but it sucks. There are more updates in a GIMP release than a Photoshop release so it should be about time for them to catch up!
Its true my laptop have no problem with vista OS. Vista for latest configuration and run much better in latest configure machine