i have bought new laptop with windows vista installed on it ,but wen i come to install xp the setup did not run.and the CD did not boot.

The Answer by Paul B :

“In short, the steps for dual-booting Vista on an XP PC are:

0. Back up ALL your PC’s important data.

1. Partition your hard drive. In Windows XP, using the $50 PartitionMagic or (according to one of our readers) the free GParted Live CD, create a new “primary” partition to install Vista on. Make it at least 20 gigabytes in size.

2. Install Vista on the new partition. Pop in the Vista CD and point it to your newly-created partition as the installation destination. Installation will restart your machine at various points.

3. Choose your operating system on boot. Once Vista is installed on your newly-created partition, on boot up, you’ll get a choice to start XP or Vista. The default is Vista. However, this can be changed using Vista’s boot manager.

When you’re up and running with Windows Vista, be sure to check our our Vista upgrade power tips.

The original article appears below for posterity, and it’s still got relevant screenshots and other info for those of you looking to dual-boot XP and Vista.”