James,
I am not an expert in computers, but do know enough to solve my problems
in terms of research. If you have medium-size data work, as you have
mentioned, and do not want to use unix-based operating systems, Vista is
by far the best choice over XP.
Recently I run a number of large-scale data analysis from genetic studies
with Stata, and only using Vista I could perform the tasks, since 2-3 GBs
of ram were needed. Under XP I think that the maximum of memory loaded by
Stata is around 940 MB.
Therefore, if you have to choose between XP and Vista, my advice is to
consider having Vista in your PCs.
All the best,
Tiago
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