If you purchased a copy of Windows Vista on DVD at a retailer or online store, you can install Vista using Microsoft's new Interactive Setup application, which guides you through a series of steps while installing Vista.

So you want to install Windows Vista? Well, we 'll walk you through all the various ways you can acquire Windows Vista in this chapter, including a clean install, where Windows Vista is the only operating system on your PC; an upgrade, where you upgrade an existing version of Windows to Windows Vista, leaving all of your data, settings, and application intact; and a dual-boot, where you leave Windows XP on your PC but install Vista to a different hard drive.

It seems like Windows Vista has a lot more versions than Microsoft has ever offered before. But that isn't quite true. The Redmond company years ago split Windows XP into almost as many versions as we have today with Vista.