Yes. She has used this on her desktop. However, the current issue is to NOT repartition the new laptop in a non-recoverable way in the first couple of months when it may need to be returned if there is anything defective. If it had only 3 primary partitions, then we could shrink one and put in a Linux partition. Reversing that is pretty easy, i.e., blow away the Linux partition and re-expand. The point of all of this is that folk won't do things that might give them trouble. It is unfortunate that M$ and friends are so hostile, likely because they are non-competitive on software. We are forced to be even more clever to win converts. JN Spencer Cheng wrote: > Have your friend consider running Windows in VMWare on Linux? I run QuickBook on Win2K hosted in VMWare on Mac OS X. I choose to do this rather than dual boot my laptop (or desktop). Much simpler if it works. I don't know if the scanner would work but VMWare usually manages to hide almost all details from the applications. > > The Windows can partition it's virtual disk to it's heart's content. > > Regards, > Spencer >