Ok so I’m ready to upgrade to 64 bit but not sure which one, XP or Vista? Don’t care about the new graphics on Vista, just want optimal performance...to be honest I don’t even really know what Vista is like and I"m not sure if it really makes that much of a difference in choosing either but just thought I would ask . I plan on upgrading from 4 gigs of Ram to 8 and wasn’t sure if Vista took up most of the ram, thus somewhat defeating the purpose of the upgrade. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Laptop Studio XPS Intel Duo Core CPU 2.13GHz 4GB RAM, Win7 64-bit, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670

Last year I would have said XP, I still get better performance out of XP, but Max 2010 on Vista 64, is a really close second, so much so, I pretty much stay in Vista now. I don’t know how much longer XP will be supported (both by M$ and Adesk), and with Win7 making it’s rounds, you’ll be 3 OS’s behind. But, if you’ve read some these forums, you’d see that none of the OS’s (or Max) is perfect, and so giving you a definitive answer is not possible. Grab the Win7 beta, try it out, if it doesn’t work well, you can skip Vista and try XP.

MP

EDIT: on the memory, Vista uses a slight bit more (if you turn off Aero), but it manages it better then XP.

Max 2009, 2010 32/64
VistaP 64 SP1
Intel Q9550 8GB
ATI 4870x2
Patriot 128GB SSD

I have been using windows 7 for almost 2 months now.And it’s an older build 7057. It’s on 64 bits...and I have to handed it to Microsoft.They made a masterpiece.honestly,I have an aging Pentium 4 HT and 4 gb of ram,and an old geforce 6600 Gt on a very old intel 915. Trust me,it is way much faster than windows xp.The memory management in windows 7 is awesome.  And always get a x64 system..

i agree windows 7 is awesome
i am using the release client

Really!!? Ok now I"m curious about Windows 7. Would you recommend the download to someone who’s somewhat familiar w/ technical issues with new OS’s because although curious not sue if I want to get myself into something I can’t get out of. The upgrade was intended for my main working computer as my secondary computer isn’t 64-bit ready. So the trouble of wiping off my hard drive to reinstall everything is a chance I’m taking on an OS I know very little of.  You guys described it as awesome and a masterpiece.....you guys have me really curious!!

Laptop Studio XPS Intel Duo Core CPU 2.13GHz 4GB RAM, Win7 64-bit, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670

i suggest you put it on machine you don’t use very often

Just a note on installing more than one OS or if you think you ever will:
Start with the oldest first or you will not be able to install an older OS without either wiping the hard drive first or
hiding the newer OS installation in order for the older OS to install. But, if you do hide it there may be issues after unhiding it.

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1