Jerry,
x86 and x64 should be fine runring from different partitions, since they draw from different driver stores, etc. But it'll be easier for you if you don't begin installing programs on a shared partition.
Obviously, what you need to be concerned about are the boot-sector (MBR) conflicts -- I'll just guess you know this, but will explain in case it's still unfamiliar. Each new installation of an OS tries to usurp control from the last.
There's an excellent and free multibooting tool called EasyBCD that takes care of all this. I was a convert once I tried it. It'll even give you relatively hassle-free Linux or OS X or Solaris OSes alongside. Read the instructions carefully, and it'll all be clear.
EasyBCD has been trouble-free for me for over a year. It's light years better than the old VistaBootPRO, and the guy who wrote it, Mahmoud al-Qudsi, worked on both the new Vista boot protocol, and on VistaBootPRO before deciding there was room for improvement.
Just to clarify, for Windows 7, Microsoft wouldn't dare change the boot protocol beyond what was done in Vista, which was move from MBR tables to a more robust (but hybrid) Boot Configuration Data (BCD) table. 7 and Vista will be fully compatible -- 7 is more like Vista + 1/2. The only thing left to tweak is a hardware switchover from the BIOS manufacturers. The new UEFI standad that's built into Vista (and to a lesser extent OS X) means next-generation machines in theory are capable of running on the UEFI standard now, and ditching BIOS -- you get things like '"nstant-on desktops" through this firmware, for one, and also more stable "logical partition tables" on hard drives. But there haven't been enough adopters of Vista yet to get manufacturers to make the jump to UEFI.
XP does not follow the UEFI standards, so that's why it's more of a nightmare to multiboot.
Hope this helps.
a.k.a.
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