Getting rid of Vista, help me choose which version of XP to install.

I have an AMD-FX 55 processor and an ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB. I used to use Vista x64 Home, in games I have experienced large stutters that occur every 8 seconds or so, this is in newer games btw.

XP Professional

x64 or x86?

The thing to do is search for 64bit xp drivers for all your hardware including mobo chipset drivers. If you can get everything, then go for xp 64.

Also consider that to utilise more than 3.5Gb of memory, it has to be 64bit Windows, but 64bit is far more picky about what it will run, it will NOT accept unsigned drivers and so on. I would not necessarily recommend it. Even if you find signed drivers for everything you have now, how can you tell what new software or hardware you may aquire that could come up short? Play safe for now, say I.

Thanks for telling me about XP Pro. After I install the mobo driver (ACPI) a cmd flashes for less than a second, has the driver been installed? I don't see anything it the Add or Remove Programs list.

Quite often low-level installs do use Dos or other command during the install. On a fast PC this will certain just take a flicker of time.

You will not see motherboard drivers in Windows add/remove because they were not really 'part of' Windows.

You might see the drivers under control panel / system / hardware /device manager and look at properties of SCI and Raid controller. Also certain of the system devices - you will see things like 'VIA standard host bridge'