Is it better to partition my blank hard drive first before installing vista to do a dual boot with X

i'm getting a new laptop. preferably want vista as my main os

Is it better to partition my blank hard drive first before installing vista to do a dual boot with XP?noton

YES!!!!!!

That way there's no chance of loosing anything and its a clean job. Plus Vista is a waste of space. If you want the cool looks get Desktop X and it does more visually.

Is it better to partition my blank hard drive first before installing vista to do a dual boot with XP?stinger

I advise you to use Acronis Disk Director.

It includes new Acronis OS Selector 鈥?a powerful, reliable, and easy-to-use boot manager.

It allows you to install 100 or more multiple operating systems (OSes) on one computer. You can boot an OS from any partition on any hard disk or have several multiboot systems on the same partition. This completely redesigned solution is now easier to use and faster.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/pro...
You partition your hard drive everytime you install a Os. And yeah you need to prepartition to dual boot or know what the partitions are and make sure you have a big enough hard drive to dual boot.
Download VMware (vmware.com) Server for free, install that in Vista, then install XP on a virtual machine for when you need it.