I think the way Linux packages are managed is smarter by far. Yum and Apt are excellent package management systems, which handle far more than Microsoft can even manage with their clunky update system for just their OS, and whatever MS software you buy. (I don't know if it all can be updated with the update system, as I don't actually have anything other than the OS itself. Since they control all the software, you'd think they could figure out, with their billions of dollars how to tell their update manager, that "this patch superceeds that one. Install it instead".
Windows is still, alas, a toy operating system in a few very fundamental ways. It can't escape its past, for reasons of back compatibility.
I'd have to agree with that. The only reason I even got it, was because there is no Linux package for itunes so I could back up my phone, or get music from it. So, now a I have VM. What's really nice about the VM is that with Workstation, you can snapshot it if you want, then have the VM return to that snapshot every time it boots. That is =nice=. There is nothing you can do to the running VM to completely hose it because you can always return to the snapshot. In fact, it's just as easy to back up the entire virtual computer into a zip or tar archive. If something bad happens in the VM, you just delete the directory that contains it and unzip/untar your archive.
I really wish you could buy an OSX VM from Apple. I understand that Apple wants to keep things easier to manage by limiting the amount of hardware they support. A Virtualized OSX would not deviate from this IMO. From a support standpoint, what can be more controllable than a VM? You have standard hardware emulation built into the entire concept. Oh well. It is unfortunate that they don't listen to me. Maybe they'll reconsider the idea now that Jobs is gone.
Well, FWIW, you can run OS-X in a VM on Apple hardware, using VMware Fusion (the Mac version of VMware Workstation). I think the versions of OS-X you can run in the VM are limited, it used to be only server versions of Snow Leopard, but that was years ago. I haven't had occasion to do it myself, so I can't give you up-to-date info. The Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_Fusion appears out of date.
In any event, once you've bought Apple's hardware, they don't much care how many copies of OS-X you run on it.
Of course, trying to run OS-X on non-Apple hardware, virtual or metal, is a whole 'nother story. :-)