Xp or Vista ?

[BuLLBuG]

This is the 1st time i post in here ,and i hope i can find a solution for my case .
recently,I pass my old comp. to my mom and building a new machine for myself.and i get stuck at which OS should i be install in my new machine .here is my spec:
Intel e8400
4g of ram
2*150g wd raptor
1 2TB mybook external hdd
I will run a 4 drive partition as C/D/E/F and I was thinking gonna use the WIN Xp 32bit as my base OS ,and install the Vista 64bit in another partition.but somehow the if i am going use dual boot, do i need to install all the same programs and same drivers in both OS ?and during the installation, how to install the raid drive for Vista ? i just getting so confuse of how to get start it of both OS.therefore,my C drive is gonna be XP,My D drive is gonna be Vista , the E drive probably for Games and the F drive for storage.
I have heard and read many of issues occuring on Vista system,such as USB and driver issue.
Any help with this ??

 

[Blazer]

C:XP PRO
D:VISTA [MAYBE]

 

[BuLLBuG]

What about the App./games that intall in E drive ?Am i have to install them twice ?

 

[Blazer]

with an OS on C: & D: and games on E: you will have to repair install from the D: drive to allow you to use those i suspect, ive never run my applications from another partition.

 

[jalaram]

I usually install the apps on the OS drive to keep things simple. I've never had luck sharing apps between OS's. So, IMHO, yes, you should install the apps twice.

 

[Pabster]

With a modern system like that, Vista. No questions asked. 64-Bit.

If you must have XP for some arcane reason, use VirtualBox and run a VM.

 

[nerp]

Vista 64 and don't look back. Screw dual booting.

 

[rudder]

Most apps you will have to install twice. The only programs I see that don't need that are games. I have a dual boot setup now for xp and xp64. I thought I was going to have to reload steam and the 12 gigs of games... but I just click on a shortcut from xp64 to where steam is installed on xp32 and it runs fine.

 

[soonerproud]

What exactly do you need XP for that Vista will not do? On modern hardware like that, you are better off just making the switch to Vista 64 bit, unless you have a specific piece of hardware or an application that will not play nice with Vista.