MBP as a Windows machine?

I've used normal external keyboards in windows, and in OSX, and they function the same in both (as in they work in both)

As for external monitor support, I've had no problems with it although I've updated the graphics drivers. Not sure if out of the box bootcamp will work with another monitor or not.

 

thats right. external keyboards (and mice, for that matter) should work as expected. the internal trackpad and keyboard will have some funkyness going on in windows. nothing major, but you'll most likely notice and be slightly frustrated. especially with the trackpad.

the driver quality that was mentioned before was most likely referring to the trackpad driver for windows on the mac. its just not that great, and its been like that since the boot camp beta a year ago, so its obviously not high on their to do list.

the gpu driver you should swap for a lv2go driver regardless of what laptop you get.

again, there are some other issues with power saving and hibernation, so you aren't going to get the best battery life in windows and might have hibernation issues.

so conceivably, if you don't use hibernation, are plugged into the wall, and use an external mouse and keyboard, you will literally have NO issues using windows on the mac. its legit perfect windows at that point. obviously all your windows applications will run perfectly.

so its not such a big deal that i wouldn't attempt it, but i wouldn't use windows as a primary OS on the thing, especially if you take your laptop around with you. and any other vender would be working around the clock to fix the wonky trackpad, but apple doesn't consider it a priority (not that unreasonable with most users on osx) but its still annoying.

 

I tried running a Macbook Air as a Windows machine for a while. It was not ideal. It lacked some features: Some of functionality of the touchpad did not work (three finger swiping and tap to click f.e.) and hibernate did not work properly.

 

Was that pre-SP1 Vista?

 

Hibernate and Sleep still don't work properly on my MBP (Vista Business), and I have everything updated.

 

I have no problems with sleep under Windows Server 2008 but can't say I have really tried hibernate.