I'm currently running windows 7 and so far I'm not liking the performance, and have been thinking of installing windows xp pro on my machine.

My question is will the performance be any better? So far my gaming experience has been troubling. excessive none responsive error messes that occurs during game play, and with freezes that requires a hard reset. It seems to be quite frequent.

It depends entirely on your hardware. Older hardware will benefit greatly with XP in some games, while other games will have the opposite effect.
Post specs?

Sorry if I change the subjet but how about if I'd install from vista to windows 8 or 7? how much would the performance change?

E8500 @3.16ghz duo core
GTX 560ti asus directUII
4Gb ram

My computer is fairly new. Here's my specs.

CPU: Intel® Core? i7-2600K 3.40 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1155
HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
MEMORY: 8GB (2GBx4) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Module
MOTHERBOARD: * [CrossFireX/SLI] GigaByte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 Intel Z68 Chipset DDR3 ATX MB w/ Lucid Virtu + Intel Smart Response Technology & 7.1 Dolby Home Theater Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, 2x SATA-III RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 3 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI
POWERSUPPLY: 1,000 Watts - CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gaming 80 Plus Power Supply
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card

Maybe I'm having an OS issue but Skyrim has been unplayable lately. So many none responsive error messages and the hard freezes are a pain.

With those specs, absolutely and most definitely stick with Windows 7. You would actually hurt performance by going back to XP.
Have you updated your drivers? Installed some crappy apps? Is your rig overheating? You should not get svcky performance at all with those specs.

Are you running 64-bit Windows 7?

Your rig is unbalanced...
The GTX 550 Ti doesn't match up to the rest of it (it's a bit of an economy model, not high-performance).
Win7 is not your issue, if looking for high framerates.
The game should run okay though, with modest settings and no high-def texture pack...

I must concur with the others. You'd be very unwise to run anything other than Windows 7 64 bit with those specs.

Also, this may be unrelated, but I had much the same issues with my computer while playing Skyrim (mine eventually degraded into BSD and hard boot lockups). I was having to reseat my memory and video card in increasing frequency until...I bit the bullet and got rid of my Gigabyte motherboard and swapped in a comparable Asus. I know, I know, that's probably not your issue but there have been a great deal of people with stability issues with Gigabyte motherboards. The product reviews on Newegg are depressing...but the price of them is always so tempting. Right?

BTW, Windows 7 made swapping the motherboard brainless. I literally did the physical swap and Windows took care of the software, drivers and config with out ever having to reinstall the OS, programs or anything. The whole project was complete in 2-1/2 hours and the only annoyance I had was re-activating software (2-3 seconds and a few clicks of the mouse).

[edit] Ha. Gryphon has the exact model that I got rid of. See, he's probably perfectly stable so my anecdote could easily be countered.

Yes - very solid and stable.
Gigabyte is the best.
Huh? Gigabyte is a premium brand (at premium prices).
Nobody buys Gigabyte to save money...
Capish?

I have a pile of games that I cannot play on Win 7(compatibility mode etc...still no go) other than that I love the OS. Hoping they do something to help with backwards compatibility but all the games I purchased for this system work amazing. AERO is a really great feature and WIN7 is waves better than Vista which I totally skipped. A true 64 bit OS worth every penny.