Also, what would be the easiest way to get old games to run on a Vista based PC?
Depends on how old it is. DOS games can be run through an emulator called DOSBox, while Windows games... well, some of them work, and others just won't depending on their hardware requirements (although some will still work in compatibility mode despite this.) In my experience about 90% of old games will still run in Vista, or can be made to run with sufficient tweaking under the hood.
If it's on Good Old Games, though, it should be updated enough to run in Vista.