[Thermodyne]

I would go with XP. Personally, I like 2K better, but that is from a support point of view. XP is more user friendly and has much better built in driver support. Both will run old games in compatibility mode, but XP is a little better at it. Compatibility mode is old news now, Virtual PC has eclipsed it. Virtual PC allows you to have a Virtual OS running from within XP or 2K. You can then load your 9x games into a virtual 9x install. Also, XP is still seeing actual enhancements from MS, SP2 is an example. MS actually put some balls on the firewall. 2K is more or less complete, and not getting the new features that are coming for XP. From an enterprise point of view, XP is a pain in the butt. But this is not really an issue for a home user that has access to administrative rights.

PS: I voted XP, even though I love 2K.