Jango40

Unless you have an Itanium processor, you're limited to Professional x64 bit, which has a large variety of issues (GFWL doesn't work -at all-, drivers are glitchy etc)

There's no real reason to use XP at all, 7 is vastly superior in every way, you've quite literally lost it if you think otherwise. Plus you don't have to deal with the fugly theme.

I switched over from XP to 7. I love 7 so much more than XP, especially the beautiful black aero theme. If you like xp, you'll love 7. But 8 is discusting. I'm sorry, but I mean it .

For a working environment eez is totally right, 7 x64 is going to be the best. Hopefully Microsoft does something about people like us that do more than look at photos, internet and videos and make a more professional version of 8. My 16gb of RAM wouldn't be usable in XP.