Does this game not work well for Vista with anyone else but me

[JCoyote]

If you have XP Pro you are probably pretty well covered. The only real advantage I could see for you would be better forward compatibility with 64 bit programs. I bought it because I had to replace my 2000 disc and the choice was between Pro and x64. I went with the newer because I had the hardware to.

But I don't think, if I already had Pro, that I would have bothered upgrading to x64. Vista will mean more 64 bit programs out there, and x64 should run most of them so that's the only real advantage. DX10 might be the only issue there... I'm not under the impression they'll release it for x64 which does suck. But there isn't a fundamental programming issue to block them from doing so... maybe we'll get lucky there.

I don't know if you still can, but there was something like a 4 month trial edition of x64 you can download and run for free. It was full featured and would definitely tell you if there would be any advantage and if you'd want to buy it.

The trick with installing the earlier OS on the larger drives is installing them on a small partition the OS can handle, then upgrading the OS to the newer service pack IMMEDIATELY without running ANY disk scans or fixes on it. After the OS is patched, then you can go about working on and resizing your disk. You might get stuck with 2 partitions but... meh. You'll still have the space. But DO NOT create that extra partition until the OS is installed AND upgraded.