Before switching to Linux for notmusical operations , I ' ve been using W 7 , then W 8 , then W 8 . 1 and finally W 10 for about 12 years , trying the new system when it was released . It worked all right for me , but the computers in the rest of my family have had problems many times . I don ' t really have much problems with W 10 , but that ' s me and a few more users . You know , in the exact moment a user that has no idea of how to maintain computers starts to download stuff from the Internet , store gigs and gigs of unsorted data , and installing and uninstalling programs , the computer starts acting weirdly . And I ' ve seen it many times , I see it everyday and I will continue seeing it . The thing is , Windows is not a bad OS . It ' s far more user friendly than Linux opposed to what Linux fans could say , but it has it ' s bugs . And those bugs can be very large ones . If the guy over there wants the computer just to make music and he will have it disconnected from the Internet almost all time , or he will check for updates a lot , he could use Windows , I use Windows for music with no Internet connection and it works like a charm , I love it . But if he wants to do more things with it , and he considers his projects valuables , he isn ' t going to like a crash in the middle of a project if he is the ones that save the progress each 2 hours . Just an opinion from a music guy and an IT EDIT I ' m not an Apple fanboy nor a Windows hater , I ' m just trying to say that he will do great with a Windows desktop , but he will have to maintain it a bit just a bit more than a MBP and take some extra care . Apple products are savagely overpriced , but you get a great stable system . I would recommend him also that if he wants to get adventurous , he could try building a hackintosh