Hi Andy--

The bottom line is that setting up a dual boot is a piece of cake; it can be
very useful as a space saver and a convenience because you always have the
files and folders and settings of XP with you (although the great variety
and sale prices of external hard drives now are very attractive and are just
going to get better as to the space/storage situation and many online
storage setups are emerging--even one from MSFT--Cloud which also lets you
share One Note folders across pcs.

If you have any questions after seeing these links, put them up.

What you want to do is possible, although it's always strongly advisable in
setting up a dual boot to install the older OS (XP) *first. I consider the
restore point problem that SS mentions a very minor one, because you can
easily shortcut from the Vista desktop to the XP desktop (with full access
to your files and folders) by typing
XP Drive\Documents and Settings\Andy's XP Profile\Desktop and dragging a
shortcut from the address bar of that folder to your Vista desktop. That
makes it rare for me to have to go to the XP via a boot to it although I do
it once in a while just to check that the AV program (One Care in my case)
and other things are humming along.

XP has a lot of important folders for me and I've just moved the important
ones to Vista or another drive into one folder for moved files that I can
conveniently bring up by typing its file path into an IE address bar.

Here are screenshots step by step for doing what you want to do.

[url]http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp[/url]

[url]http://www.setup32.com/resource-guides/windows-vista/how-to-dualboot-vista-and-xp-with-vista-.php[/url]

[url]http://nvis.net/articles/5/1/How-to-dual-boot-Vista-and-XP-with-Vista-installed-first/Page1.html[/url]

Some background and context for you from Paul Thurrott:
[url]http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_install_04.asp[/url]

Good luck,

CH

"Andy" <andy@indigo.ie> wrote in message
news:f9qk76$19c$1@news.datemas.de...[color=blue]
> Will be getting a new Dell PC soon with Windows Vista preloaded on it
> (Doubt if it will come with a Vista installation CD). What I want to know
> is if I can easily install Windows XP and leave the Vista intact and just
> chose at startup of PC whether to use Vista or XP? - I think they call it
> dual booting isn't it?
>
> But I don't really want to go formatting and partitioning the hard drive
> if I can avoid it to do this.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Andy.
>
>
>[/color]