rojash can I ask, if I may. When will XP no longer be suported? I'm with you I ony went to 7 because my hard drive blew but I never saw a problem with XP.
Yes, obviously my next machine will have Win 7. And all my other machines are Win 7 x64. Can't see any reason for putting Win7 x86 on a modern machine.
Microsoft has just extended downgrade rights for running XP on some Win 7 licences to 2020 because the vast majority of business systems are still running XP and have little desire to change.