> > It's not that I use the win7 installation much, but I do want to be able > to do so when one of those rare occasions pops up. > If your laptop is powerful enough and its processor supports hardware virtualization, you can have both systems running at the same time with almost no speed decrease. There are free virtualization solutions such as Virtual Box. You would instsl C7 and then create a virtual machine for Windows. When you need Windows, just run it in a window. Dual boot is a PITA.