Bill--
Dell would send you an OS CD with XP when and if you asked. Whether you
paid for it or not depended on how you approached it and who you talked
with.
With Vista, they say they have decided to make it standard. See
http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/10/17/3132.aspx . If you can
document any of the other 300OEM named partners who are doing this as
default, I'm all ears. Whether you buy it or not, I have had many of them
tell me MSFT pushes them not to ship them in their contract. It's about
profit for MSFT. I wouldn't have a system without a DVD either and never
have.
I haven't had a restore partition since I got my first computer, and deleted
it. My experience, and it's extensive in repairing broken no boot XPs and
Vista is that you're infinitely better off having the DVD in case other
means fail and you need to do a repair install in XP or use Win RE's tools
in Vista (which can be used for fixing Vista when you aren't in a no boot
situation).
I don't want OEM crap that's designed to fool the masses just like the Iraq
"war" has fooled apathetic, indifferent Americans who will sit in a corner
and drool along with their pathetic Congress, while thousands more are
wasted and billions of dollars a month. It's the #1 cause of involuntary
reformats where people feel forced to format, partly because they got into
situations without a DVD or CD (the common preloaded OEM sales situation)
and partly because they are ignorant of Repair Install in XP and a repair
install in Vista.
I've read all the information on dual boots on this group and the setup
groups for over a year and participated in many of them.
If you are willing to read, most Americans are not, then a dual boot can be
a very useful stable environment as to Vista and XP and depending on your
interests a multiboot with other OS's.
There are several ways to overcome the volsnap.sys restore point situation
on a dual boot, as well as the Vista backup situation that Colin Barnhorst
for one has pointed out here.
Given the volume of bugs that MSFT chose not to resolve prior to shipping
Vista that I've watched since its first Beta build, I wouldn't have a box
without XP as a backup OS.
CH