Hi,
I have Vista and XP set as dual boot on my machine with no problems.
HOWEVER, I have noticed that on most of the forums I'm a member of that people are having a LOT of issues surrouding the install of Vista on their existing machines and some are even losing data over it.

EASIEST way to protect yourself is to download VMWare or Virtual PC and install it that way. I would suggest VMWare as they just added a base for Vista that's in Beta and VERY stable.

This is just a friendly suggestion to help those who aren't too sure about what they're doing when it comes to dual booting or installing Vista. Doing it via a Virtual Computer is SAFE and easy to work with.

Good Luck.
Mercury

This is very true. Mercury is very correct in this aspect.

Again, like he said, I would reccomend running all new OSs from a Vmware or a Virtual Pc (the latter of which is free)

I know i sound scathing with this one, but shouldn't people be 'backing up' before installing a new OS anyway? I wouldn't want people who don't perform basic precautionary measures for thier data testing MY next generation OS anyway...

Of course, i wouldn't 'want' to mess anything up, and Virtual PC really is a great, clean, method for installing Vista (and testing just about anything for that matter) but even using that to install, i would have backed up, because nothing is 100%, no chance ever, just will not break.

I really dont see Vİsta... Could put some screen captures here.... i am wondering how is...

For Vitsa screenshots visit this link:
http://www.only4gurus.com/v3/longhorn.asp

1. Vista doesnt install on virtual PC 2004 (dunno bout virtual server)
2. People shouldnt be installing devel versions if they dont know what th hell they are doing
3. People who do know what there doing should know to back up thier files and remember to keep thier previous OS media handy

WO WO WO, are u saying that:

A. Newbies usually loose all of their data because they just try to install, and arent aware of partitioning for dual booting?

or

B. Vista is tricky to install and, will overwrite the whole HD regardless of partitions?

in other words, if i use a seperate partition to install it, will everything be cool?

Right now i have 3 win systems on my pc:
1.winXp(32)
2.winXp(64)
3.another winXp(32) (witch i will be getting rid of)

all on seperate partitions.

Is it pretty mutch like a win xp setup?

Oh yea and im refuring to Vista RC1

yeah. you should be fine. there have been issues where vista wants to be on the first partition on a drive, but that wasn't an issue with me when i installed RC1 on my machine.

K THANX MAN

yes vista is actually better in some respects at booting than XP was
the partitioning screen is like the one from something like fedora core 1 or 2