Only one machine here (notebook), so due to my needing my computer to work with no questions asked, I gave Vista and Office 2007 a test install and test drive twice. Waiting for RC1 now.

Probably due to Windows 2000 being geared towards a business environment where knowledgeable technicians would be responsible for backups, where Windows ME was focused on home users and the introduction of new approaches to multimedia and ease of use (which obviously failed at "ease of use").

I believe you need to do a clean install of XP if you either upgraded on top of XP or installed Vista to the same partition that XP was on. The install process writes the XP files to the directory "windows.old" but to the best of my knowledge that is just to allow you to access the files.

Assuming you have the XP installation disc, you would first obtain the following drivers:

1 - Chipset drivers for your motherboard chipset.

2 - Video drivers for your video adapter (graphics card).

3 - Audio drivers for your audio chip or card.

4 - Networking drivers (i.e., NIC card, Wireless adapter, Modem).

5 - USB drivers only if you are not installing either XP with Service Pack 2, or Service Pack 2 after installing a previous version of XP.

6 - Drivers for any devices such as printers, special input mouse, tablet, etc.

Once you have the drivers (which you may already have on disc, or download via the computer or hardware manufacturer's web site) make sure they are available on external storage of some sort (CD, external drive, etc.).

Power on computer and press the appropriate key to boot into the BIOS settings display (usually Esc, Del, F1, or F2) and then set the boot sequence so that the CD (or DVD) drive you use is the first boot device. Place the XP installation disc in the CD (or DVD) drive > save settings in BIOS and exit > wait for the text prompt "Hit any key to boot from CD" to display, and then hit "Enter" to start boot sequence.

This will place you in the XP Set-Up screens.

To do a clean install, you would do the following:

1 - Press "Enter" when promted to start set-up.

2 - Press "F8" to accept the EULA.

3 - Press "Esc" to start XP installation process.

4 - Press "D" key to delete anything on the partition you are intending to install XP on (note - make sure to review the highlighted partition to verify that you are working with the correct partition).

5 - Press "Enter" to continue.

6 - Press "L" to verify that you indeed want to proceed with deleting the selected partition data.

7 - Review the type of format highlighted (Raw Format is the default, and is recommended for a true clean install).

8 - Press "Enter" to start the formatting process.

Once formatting is completed, Set-Up will copy the files to the Windows directory, reboot, and proceed with installing the XP operating system.

Note - this is the procedure for a true "clean install". If you want to do a repair, you could try that, but I do not know what the results would be.

Note #2 - there may be a way to access the set-up in the "windows.old" directory and restore XP that way, but I am unfamiliar with any such possibility and will leave that to better minds than mine.

It should be noted that Microsoft has said that Vista is a limited offer.

This means that the number of downloads (and DVD orders) worldwide has a limit, and that once that number is reached there will be no more downloads (or DVD orders) available.

I do not know what the magic number is, but I do know that the last e-mail I received said that the key I have entitles me to downloads through the end of the month at the latest.