I'm using 32bit Windows Vista on Quad Core PC with 3GB RAM.
I'm not sure who said that Vista is a horrible OS, but for me it works fine. The PC is ON for 24/7 365 days, no OS crashes (mostly Firefox, that memory hogger and flash)
I also have MAC OSX 10.5.8 on kids MAC MINI, I let kids use OSX because it's harder to mess things up then on Windows PC.