Win 7 and Vista use 500MB more RAM, and some CPU as well. I think XP is the best WIN OS.
IF you're making one on your own, you might as well bick up a Win XP OS HDD. Most games can run on XP as well. Vista is crap, so ether XP or 7. About CPU cooling, if you don't overclock, the standard one should be fine, but don't think that you can buy a CPU without one, and use your old fan.
90% of the broken Xboxes that MS gets sended in are broken because of pour CPU cooling.
(99% of all Xboxes got sended in.)




