Windows 7 n00b questions? -

Okay, I own a Samsung laptop windows XP with Nvidia Go 7600 and intel centrino duo. Will my laptop be able to run the windows 7 beta? If I can run it, is there a way to get my XP back? Will I lose all of my data by trying out the beta? Is there some sort of bootcamp-ish sort of thing where I can have 2 OSs at the same time?

install virtualbox (www.virtualbox.org) and it will allow you to simultaneously boot both OS s at once and you can try 7 while youre sitting in xp.

You didn t say exactly what hardware is in the laptop, so only you will be able to figure out if you can run it. See the minimum requirements for Windows 7 beta to find out: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows... If you install Windows 7 beta over your partition that has XP on it, then no, you will not get XP back in the current state it is in unless you create a backup image. You can optionally create a second partition by shrinking the current one and then creating a new one from the free space and then installing Windows 7 beta on that second partition and then XP will be untouched. If you are interested in this (dual-booting), then you can find steps to do this here: http://lifehacker.com/5126781/how-to-dua... If you want to run XP and be able to try out Windows 7 beta while you re still in XP, then yes, you can do that by using VirtualBox. Get it here: http://www.virtualbox.org/

I think with the windows 7 beta that it wipes your Hard Drive. I have yet to try it out when I get my DVD-R discs I will test it/