Okay, I can answer all those for ya. First, about installing so you don't override windows, you just select the option to resize the partition when you are in the installer, granted you are trying to install Ubuntu. It will have a little "slider" that will let you pick how big you want to cut your windows partition down to. When you boot it will do a little countdown in the beginning, press escape then you will be able to pick windows or ubuntu. About running xp programs. You can with an app called wine. I have never done it though. I don't have windows on anything. You can most likely get a program that is better anyhow. I'll give you some more info too. Linux is just the kernel. Linux is not an entire operating system. To make a long story shot back in the 80's (I think) the GNU project started. The ideal was to create a free (as in freedom) and open source operating system. They had everything but the kernel made. Then people started putting what was made of GNU and putting it with the linux kernel and calling it linux. It really should be GNU/Linux. Have fun, Ben

You could wipe Windows altogether then install Linux as operating system as host and then if your XPS allows virtualisation if the processor is t7200+ under POST allow virtualisation then get the kernel source for your flavour of Linux and recompile it with virtualisation module if the kernel is 2.6.20+ it allows a module kvm-intel to be loaded via /sbin/modprobe kvm-intel then get qemu now for this you will need qemu and to compile it with gcc 3.4.X once this is done you can create a windows image qemu-img create -f raw /path/to/image.raw 10G which basically creates a virtual harddisk of 10 GB now insert win xP into the cdrom/dvd drive qemu -hda /path to image.raw -cdrom /dev/hdc -boot d -win2k-hack -m 512 -no-acpi and windows should open as a window (guest operating system under a Linux Host operating system) and install itself onto the virtual drive this takes about 1hour to install logoff as normal and close screen from now on boot winXP via qemu -hda /path to image.raw -boot c -win2k-hack -m 512 -no-acpi which basically runs windows XP as guest (basic setup) if you mess with the command line settings you can have cdrom usb and sound and fullscreen networking all the nice stuff. sorry but I am in a hurry if you want to have a try at this let me know how you get on I have a XPS T7400 and it boots as guest OS winXP and Solaris the team behind KVM and Qemu are also quiet helpfull if help is needed. Kind Regards and good luck its quiet tricky Michael

yeah... lets not confuse the new people. your discouraging new users from trying open source software. lets try to be helpful.

thanks guys

Message Edited by NvidiaXPS400 on 05-12-2007 10:59 PM

Also, please do a backup of your data, in case things go wrong. Partitioning messes with your HD on a fundamental level. And defrag the drive beforehand. Going by some posts, some people have had trouble with Vista not booting after using the Ubuntu partitioner, but then again, the nature of a forum is that you only hear from people with problems. The installer will guide you though setting up a dual-boot, but you have to pay attention to what's being done and which partition you choose to install into. Leave Windows first on the disk.
I'm wary myself installing Ubuntu on my new Vista machine. On my previous machine with XP, I used Partition Magic, which I trust, to create the partitions beforehand; 5-6Gb for the Linux root (or "/", the System files themselves; should be plenty), about 1Gb for Swap (Virtual Memory; at least as much as you have RAM), and whatever for a Home partition, which is where all your personal files are stored. The idea of a separate Home partition is that you can reinstall without damaging your files. Some people try different distributions, or just prefer clean-installing a new version.
But Symantec hasn't updated P.M. since they bought it a while back, so I wouldn't trust it under Vista. There are other 3rd party Windows apps that are Vista-certified, or simply use the built-in disk manager.

Perhaps the best and cheapest option;
1. Right-click the drive icon in Explorer and choose "Properties". Choose the Tools tab and Defragment Now. Go have some coffee, watch some TV, or go for a walk (or all three).
2. Use the built-in Disk Manager (Control Panels -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management, choose Disk Management under Storage) to resize the Windows partition to whatever is appropriate, then
3. Use the Linux installer to partition the empty space as above.

As for running XP apps, as mentioned there's a project called Wine, which stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator". It has recently gone to Beta, which means its Windows API is complete, but needs more work. It is far from perfect; it will not run every program or run those it does flawlessly. Programs will look out of place with its Windows 95 square grey look. And there's a considerable speed penalty. I wouldn't want to run Photoshop on it, although it is one of the apps that are supported.
Although many MS Office apps work fine, there is a commercial version of Wine called Crossover Linux, which puts special effort into a nice interface and getting certain popular programs working as well as possible, especially MS Office apps and things like Photoshop, iTunes and the like.
And then there's Cedega, another commercial offshoot, which specialise in getting games to run and as fast as possible. An issue with the main Wine project is DirectX used by many games, which is where Cedega has put its efforts.

You could start by checking out the Wikipedia entries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_%28software%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrossOver
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedega

Thanks for the advice.

Michael, Once you get your partitions sorted, getting your system to dual boot is as easy as falling off a log. :) Don't let anyone discourage you in that regard. Dual-boot is a very common and well documented set-up.

"You'll never get it to work.The partitions can not be placed correctly."

Are you referring to a dual boot setup with Vista or with XP?

I have a quad boot setup with Vista, XP, Ubuntu, and Fedora Core 5 across 3 hard drives. Trust me, it's not that hard.

On one drive to set up a dual boot with XP, as stated before, you would need to:
Have XP installed (the cleaner/newer the better)
Defrag the volume
Start installation of Linux from the CD/DVD
Edit the partition table to: [--XP--][----/home----][--/--][swap]
Make sure that only the /home, /, and Swap partitions are formatted
Finish install

On Ubuntu, the automatic Grub bootloader setup automatically finds other operating systems on the hard drive and adds them. Dual booting XP and Ubuntu was painless.

I have heard that Vista Ultimate will not allow dual booting while Bit-Locker is enabled, but you can disable it for the installation, and then everything should be peachy.

go here and download Wubi http://www.cutlersoftware.com/ubuntusetup/wubi/en-US/index.html It will install ubuntu for you like a windows program, everything is automatic, you need a broadband connection and at least 6gig free space on your hardrive. It will install ubuntu from the internet with easy to follow directions. It recognized all my hardware on my dell dimension