I program on Windows. I wouldn't know any reason why it would be better than any other OS for programming; I'm just a Windows 'fan' (I value Windows' flexibility/compatibility over iOS' 'oo shiny' and quite frankly my Windows has never 'randomly crashed' to motivate a switch to linux. I do plan on messing around with linux when my personal system gets a bit too old for gaming.).
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Express is very nice (I prefer it over Codeblocks, Eclipse and Netbeans, but I've only used those last two for Java. The C++ experience might be different). I've also had the luxury of using the Visual Studio 2010 Professional and Ultimate editions, but they have far more features than I need. The only thing I really need is the Profiler that comes with it.
Comparison-wise, this post won't help you much, as I've never programmed on an iOS or linux environment. However, you shouldn't rule out Windows. In my opinion, it's the 'perfect' mix of flexibility and user-friendliness (but I suppose linux has improved drastically in that last category as well).