4gb RAM & XP Pro?

[roguerower]

I'm upgrading from my laptop to a new desktop soon and it'll have 4gb of RAM and a C2D 8400 running on new Asus P5Q P45 mobo.

I've been using XP Pro on my laptop (and the one before that one) for the last 5 years and have become accustomed to it's quirks and what it can do. I tried to load Vista-32 on my laptop (Pentium-M Dothan) but something bad happened hardware wise and I quickly uninstalled and went back to what worked.

My question is whether or not I would be set going with Vista or XP? I play PC games, both older and newer, and I run certain construction software that I am unsure as to whether it will work on Vista. I know this would seem to eliminate Vista from the mix but I was also wondering about loading both on the HDD and then boot to w/e is required based upon my needs.

In that case...Vista 64-bit or 32-bit?

 

[Aberforth]

XP pro or vista 32bit cannot use more than 2 GB ram per application so go for Vista 64bit. Run Vista Upgrade Advisor to check hardware/software compatibility before installing. Also you have to install a fresh copy of Vista 64 because upgrade installation is not possible from XP pro 32.

 

[roguerower]

Checked my software and found that I have XP Pro x64 on an .iso and Vista Enterprise in a .exe or a .iso

Any thoughts?

EDIT: I am getting these off my account on my school server, not stealing them

 

[roguerower]

Checked my software and found that I have XP Pro x64 on an .iso and Vista Enterprise in a .exe or a .iso

Any thoughts?

 

[Aberforth]

I think you can upgrade from XP x64, burn the Vista ISO and upgrade your XP, but do remember to run Upgrade Advisor.