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setting up dual boot requires some advance planning. Of course,
you must place all files that you need to use while you're booted
into a particular operating system on a partition with a compatible
format. But you also need to be aware of how each operating
system assigns drive letters to partitions as it starts up. Windows
9x, for example, does not reserve a drive letter for an NTFS-
formatted partition; it's as if the drive doesn't exist. If you have
CD-ROM drives or other partitions after the NTFS-formatted
partition, those drives will have different drive letters when you
boot into Windows 9x than when you boot into Windows 2000.
This might not have any adverse affects. But if you have a
document containing links to other files, and those links contain
drive letters in their path information, the links will be broken
except when you use the same operating system in which you
created the linked document. Older programs that rely on private
.ini files are also heavily dependent on consistent application of
drive letters. (Registry entries that contain drive letters, while
much more common, are actually less problematic because each
operating system must maintain its own separate registry.)

Installing Each Operating System on a
Separate Partition

The setup programs for all versions of Windows (including
Windows NT and Windows 2000) let you install a new operating
system on any partition, including one that already contains an
operating system. We implore you: install each operating system
on a separate partition! Doing otherwise is not worth the hassles
that are bound to crop up later.
The biggest problem with installing multiple operating systems on
a single partition arises with applications, many of which reside in
the \Program Files folder on the boot partition (the partition where
the operating system is installed, typically in the \Winnt or
\Windows folder). Setup routines for some programs allow you to
choose an alternative installation folder; many do not. You'll need
to install each application separately from each operating system.
(In other words, if you have Windows 9x and Windows 2000 on
the same partition, you need to install each application two times:
once from Windows 9x and once from Windows 2000.) This is