I'm not sure about Ireland but what you're talking about, with installing Windows for yourself then transferring the disc and the computer
isn't legal under U.S. jurisdiction. I'd look into that to see if you don't have similar laws, since I doubt it's unlikely
As for whether Windows is worthwhile, I'd usually say if you need to ask, you probably won't need it. you can often find roughly equivalent software on the mac platform. Most of the major brand names develop versions for OSX, even Microsoft! Even if something you need specifically doesn't work, you can often find a substitute.
If you want something you know for a fact you can't find a substitute of the program in question, a situation that's most common with mission critical peripherals/software or computer games that don't stand a chance in the whole wide world of seeing a port, that's probably where buying a copy of Windows comes in.
While I've never really gotten it to work, I hear in most cases
Wine (or its commercial cousin CrossOver) can help you play many windows programs (but not drivers) directly in OSX with little overhead.
John T said:
If you must have Windows - I assume for playing games. Why not buy a dedicated PC just for this platform - they're cheap enough. Then you won't have to infect your Mac.
Assuming assuming somebody's going to have a Mac anyway, I don't see the sense in this. Two computers cost more than one. One may not have the budget for this and even if one did, it'd make just as much sense to put the money towards buying a more powerful mac and a cheap copy of Windows to enjoy increased productivity on the OSX side of things as well. The steps between different macintosh models isn't more than $500 and
Home Premium only costs $120. Also the step between the lowest end mac in the MBP and iMac lines to the next is only $300 dollars, so going two steps up with Windows is only $920. You don't get much better than the sub 1000 dollar price range with a self built dedicated gaming rig. Even if you were to go the Mac Mini+dedicated gaming rig route, I don't see why you wouldn't consider buying a second tier 27" imac instead, unless upgradability for the gaming machine was a concern or you wanted a guest machine. (The iMacs are dangerously near refresh time according to the buyer's guide, so let's place aside direct spec comparisons for now.)
Also having everything on one device also saves space, which can be convenient for a variety of reasons. You might not have the space for two roughly equivalent desktop setups in the home, while lugging around one laptop, even if it's fairly large is surely less cumbersome than lugging around two smaller ones.
Also concerning an iMac in particular, a lot of the value is in the less cumbersome space saving design and high quality monitor, which can't be utilized with a secondary P.C. to my knowledge.
