Thanks Philly,  I guess Vista to W7 is going to be the only way to upgrade so I thought I'd give it a go while I can get a cheap OEM copy of Vista Home Premium.  Or maybe I should just wait for the full version of W7.  I don't know which might be more cost effective.

Vista to Win 7 would be the easier upgrade than XP to Win 7, but upgrading from XP to Vsta is not necessarily the best or cheapest way, particularly if you have to upgrade your hardware because Vista is more resource intensive. If your current rig isn't powerful enough to cope with the requirements of Vista, then you may be better off saving your money and waiting to get the full version of Win 7, which is less resource intensive than Vista and should run well enough on most modern machines.

Let's put it this way, if your current rig needs hardware upgrades to handle Vista properly - that's a double expense that's tripled when you upgrade again to Win 7 -  then you would probably be better off waiting for Win 7 to be realeased and getting a full version at a fractionally higher price than an upgrade edition.

I suppose, too, it depends on your current hardware and whether or not it is sufficient to run Win 7, because if it isn't, you would need to weigh up the pros and cons of upgrading your hardware to accomodate Win 7, or buying a new rig with it pre-installed.  I know that MS had a utility people could use to to test their PC's for Vista upgradability but I haven't seen one as yet for Win 7; however, that would answer some of your questions if there is one.... should I discover one I'll be in touch.

Only time can tell. It is unfotunate that we have to wait for time but time doesn't wait for us. At the same time it is fortunate because had it not been the case all actions will cease to exist.

So in my view, you might wish to wait.

I havn't dual boot XP and Vista but you can learn it here. and Please read the 'Page 6' there.

What file system for XP and Vista?

Should both be NTFS?

Will XP on FAT32 and Vista on NTFS work?

I used Vista to create the second partition,(administrative tools-computer management) then booted off win7 dvd, and installed it without a hitch to the partition that i had created using vista, it actually took less time to install win7 than vista

I may be wrong here, but I don't think you can use the FAT system in Vista anyway... I think it installs as NTFS by default due to the OS size, etc.... same with Win 7.  In fact, drives/partitions over a certain size (been a while so I can't remember exactly) are automatically assigned the NTFS file system, due to FAT becoming unstable on larger drives.

As for upgrading to Win 7 from XP (or Vista), is the option still there to do a clean install, where setup asks you to insert your previous OS disk to show eligibility, like it was with the XP upgrade?  If that is possible with Win 7, then that would be the preferable way to go as the new OS is not inheriting and anomolies from the old one.

Also, for those on older machines who are unsure if Win 7 will run properly, does anyone know if MS has released a tool (like they did for Vista) that assesses the current hardware configuration for Win 7 operability/suitability?  I've not seen one as yet, but one would be very useful for those considering an upgrade to Win 7 on older machines.... though it's probably not as big an issue due to Win7 being a smaller intall and using less resources than Vista does.