I don't have enough recent experience with windows to have a valid opinion
since I haven't really used it since Vista came out.
The same actually applies to me. Windows XP was the last windows I used more
than a few hours.
Entering the free software world does involve some small sacrifices. E.g.,
abandoning some sites with Flash and no free software solution (not the case
of the most common ones), some (bad) friends who would only communicate
through Skype or Facebook, etc. But there is freedom to gain and, overall,
the best applications are free software... Emacs rules! :-)