I am somewhat of an expert on this topic. I am only in High School but was hired be GeekSquad as a computer repairman. I have taken several computer/programming classes at school and have received programming jobs as well.I have an external Hard Drive (2 TB) split into 4 partitions of 500 GB each of which I have four operating systems, one installed on each one. Those are:
- Windows XP
- Windows Vista
- Windows 7
- Ubuntu 10.04 Live Linux Platform
When it comes to windows, Vista should be out of the question. It is probably the crappiest operating system ever to hit the market. The reason Windows 7 was released very soon after Vista was because Microsoft realized their mistake and wanted to fix it.Between Windows 7 and XP, it all depends on what you want. ROM users like you usually prefer a more simple graphics layout with more user control...therefore XP would suit you. If you care a lot about a fancy desktop then Windows 7 might be for you. Windows 7 is not slow however, as you might expect from a "looking good" oriented operating system. The internal layout is very smooth and fast giving you far less blue screens in 7 than XP.If you are looking at straight out preformance and don't care about graphics....well I would actually still choose windows 7. But it's up to you. Check out this article:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355703,00.asp