My point is to run stable , XP needs 512MB RAM
Nah, I have been using XP on three machines, all with different amounts of Ram.. 128, 256, and 192Mb, and they all run fine.

Win2K is the slowest OS ever made by Windows due to the security features in it IMO, and I have to say, I have yet to see XP blue screen on me.

I havent tried it with music software yet, but as it runs Fireworks, Dreamweaver and Photoshop at the same time very comfortably, I dont see music software being a problem.

However, I could just be lucky.