One thing which haven't been mentioned yet is using virtualization software. This will allow you to run another OS in your already running OS. Saving you the hassle of restarting the computer when you want to switch.
http://www.virtualbox.org/
I run VitualBox in Win7 and can then play all games and run all windows apps the way they should be run. And then use some other OS (Ubuntu in my case) to do the tasks which are much easier to perform there.