Upgrade Windows XP 32 Bit to XP Pro 64 Bit?

I currently am running Windows XP Media Center Edition Ver 2002 SP-3. I am
experiencing system lockups and crashes. I went to repair the system and it
says that my current system is newer and will ONLY ReInstall, not repair.

So my thought process is if I am going to go thru a complete reinstall of my
system, then I may as well upgrade. My choice would be XP Pro since I have
heard NOTHING good about Vista. History, I do game online, and everone, bar
none, tells me NOT to upgrade to Vista.

So, which Windows XP Pro do I want to get? Full Version? Upgrade Version?
Which Service Pack?

Any and all information will be greatly appreciated.

 

1. You cannot upgrade from any Windows 32 bit OS to any 64 bit OS, you must
perform a clean installation.
2. You get the newer version error due to the service pack level of your
installation vs. the service pack level of your installation media, you can
use a process called slipstreaming to update your installation media.
3. There is, AFAIK, no upgrade version of XP 64 bit, it was only available
in OEM.
4. Driver and hardware support for XP x64 is pretty limited, research all of
your hardware to see if drivers are available before considering the
transition.
5. Best solution, wait until Windows 7 x64 is released (late 09, early 10 I
believe) and upgrade to that.

 

== Quote from David B. ()'s article

Or install the x64 version of Windows Vista if you can't wait that long.

 

== Quote from NM-Wolf ()'s article

Full version, never the upgrade, and all the latest updates.

 

Since you own XP, you would be eligible for the Upgrade version, which you
can use for a clean install. Your choice of 32-bit or 64-bit depends on
your system and uses. XP64 does not have the driver availability of
Vista64, so make sure any hardware and software has drivers available for
XP64. Most software without drivers runs well on XP64, but not all, so make
sure any critical software you need will run on it.
Windows 7 is a good choice if you can wait for release. Vista64 is much
better since SP1 was released and should be better with SP2.

 

I will second John on the Vista comments. Vista 32 Home Premium has worked
very well for me and I love the media center enhancements. Prior to SP1 it
really wasn't fast, I had file transfer timeouts (it took all of 45 minutes
to transfer 200MB of files over a 100mb connection. Honest). It also
didn't have the RSAT (Remote System Administration Tools) tools that I use
here at work to admin the network here at the office. I would have
recommended it to ANYBODY let alone my parents or friends. The reverse is
now true. Yes, it does chew up more resources than it probably should but
as long as you have the resources to throw at it I would recommend it.
Windows Search seems to be the biggest hog and you can disable that if you
like.

And yes, I game on it:

3gb ram
ATI Radeon X1950XT
7200rpm sata 150 disk

I mention the specs because if you look, this is all hardware from 2 years
ago. It still works great for CoD 4. My only recommendation is that you
make sure you have at LEAST 2gb of memory, 4 preferred. It would take a
while to page out the memory and load the OS memory back into the ram after
playing a game when I had 2gb, talking about 20 seconds of semi-responsive.
Upgraded to 3gb and it easily handles it now with about 2 seconds after the
game exits until fully responsive.