yea, you can duel boot it with ease (run xp and vista), vista is still build on NT platform, which is nearly 10 years old now, Mac is new developing technology, now with the core 2 duo, you cant really go wrong. I was actually there helping bench mark visa, when it was called longhorn, they had to scrap most of there main building block files as it was just too unstable, from what I read now, much hasn’t changed. Your best off getting an up to date version of xp. I can tell you this; the next computer I’m going to buy is going to say apple on it