[les turnbull]

At startup im given the choise to boot to windows 7 or Xp .It has a 15 second countdown so if i dont select one it then boots to 7.

There are free software downloads that will create a partition within your existing partition. I Think u might be able to partition your drive with computer management in vista though i cant be certain. dont do it if u have less than 10gig free as 7 takes up about 8 gig, ish. after u have created the partition u will have to format the new partition in ntfs file type.
U should get away with a 20 -25gig partition min, remembering that this beta expires oct 29 2009 and is not upgradeble according to microsoft.

Then download windows 7 beta from windows ,2.44gig iso.

THIS NEXT PART IS ALL DONE WITH XP RUNNING,

Then what i did was download and install magicdisk which is a virtual drive software,then mounted the 7 iso in the magicdisc virtual drive , then in { MY COMPUTER tab } a extra drive appears next to your cd and hard drive C , called iso, Doubleclick it and the windows 7 beta install page opens,click install and it detects your harddrives and on mine it highlited the empty 60gig partition i had ready for the install, then it takes about 50 mins before it needs any input from you ,like cd key which u are sent to your email at signup and download.

Yes all my existing files and operatin systems are intact.
reguards Les.