re: That's my preference, except for one consideration.
I'd bet XP has the drivers you need. When I upgraded my old box from Win2000 to XP, the drivers kicked in without a hitch. Didn't have one old peripheral I had to go driver fishing for.
If you only have one major driver issue, it would be worth checking out first. XP is a very mature system now, which is probably why Microsoft is going to stop selling it on disk in a year or two.