[zHunter]

I'm thinking of trying out the windows vista rc1 beta. I've currently misplaced my windows XP CD (it's here somewhere, I just can't find the beggar). I want to keep all my files without needing to back them up. I have a second hard drive inside the machine, so I could have a dual install? My questions are:

1) When you do a dual install of windows xp and windows vista, are all your files available in both operating systems?

2) My Windows XP install is currently really slow, but I can't reinstall it which is normally how I fix the problem (see above re: misplaced disc). If I install windows vista in dual boot, will vista run quickly (i.e. like a new install)?

3) Are there any disadvantages to using dual boot? i.e. are there any reasons not to do it?

And anything else people who have done this think I should be aware of! i.e. driver issues etc.

My computer is a athlon xp 3400+, 2 gig of ram, 1x250 GB hd (windows xp home), 1x 40 GB hd (potential vista hard drive), creative audigy 2 ZS, nvidia nforce 3 motherboard, nvidia geforce 6800 GT graphics, 2 x LCD monitors.