Windows 7, XP, or Vista?

I ordered 4 gigs of RAM for my Macbook a little under a week ago. I'm debating between installing XP 32 bit or Vista 64 bit. I had way too many troubles finding compatible drivers for XP 64 bit, so I guess that is out of the question.

Which would be faster: XP 32 bit with about 3 gigs of RAM or Vista 64 bit with 4?

(And on a side note, would it be worth it to install Windows 7; a beta? I've used it, but I don't know how stable it would be.)

The windows partition would be used mainly for a few games and mostly nothing else.

And if it matters, I have a 2.1ghz processor.

Thanks in advance.

Unless you have an absolute need for 64 bit, I would go with the 32 bit XP for now. Faster, uses less resources, stable and simple. Then upgrade to Win7 when it's out of beta. I have Win7 in a Fusion VM (and like it a lot) but would not install it as my only windows OS under boot camp because I would not want to rely on a beta version. I would skip Vista altogether frankly but that's just one man's opinion.

Vista is fine, it will use more resources. Ultimately, it's up to you. They will all work.

For your needs, XP 32 bit would be the better choice. Plenty of drivers available, fast, uses less resources and certainly a more familiar face.

Windows 7 Preview beta is actually a good stable release (MS may have gotten this one right - let's hope they don't mess it up) but it does have some issues with drivers for now.

Vista 32 bit SP 1 is fine, drivers are OK but it's a bit slower than XP and does consume more resources. I can't speak for Vista 4 bit.

Regards.

Thank you very much. This has helped a lot.

I use Vista 64. Pretty rock solid these days. I also use Win7 64 which is also rock solid. I would not use Win7 for production, as when the product is released, it will be doubtful to allow upgrades from Beta, so you would need to start over. 64 bit gives access to > 3GB of ram.

Yeah, my problem is finding the drivers for x64 Vista; which would be on a Macbook.

Would 3 gigs with x64 Vista be faster than 3 gigs with XP x32?

It would not be faster...probably slower. The x64 drivers for vista and Win7 are on disk1 of Leopard. in /Boot Camp/drivers/apple