Hi i have a very basic question. I'm purchasing a comp from Dell. will come with Vista and i'm gettting the in-home support.

Can i downgrade to XP legally? DO i need to buy a copy of XP? am aware i can't load a dodgy copy of xp if their service engineers are gonna be looking at it? is my bet option to partition and load a genuine xp and if so how much should i expect to pay for same.

Sorry for all the questions but laptop is for my boyfriend and he's insisting to dell cover!

Would appreciate any adviceCan't you order the computer with XP instead of vista?

Are you ordering from the Dell website or getting it from a store?There is a way to put XP on after VISTA. But it is not a recommended  method.
Inside of VISTA  you can shrink the current partition and make rum for more, You can create a new partition for XP. BUT. at that point you need atoll to save the content of the SECTORS of the drive that have the funny way that vista does boot management. This is really a Linux trick. But it will do the job..
Forgot THEE link. I will  come back and edit this later.
EDIT FOUND IT:
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm

If ordering through their website, you can ask for XP instead, at a cost of $120 more. (Last time I checked was a week or two ago.)

To be honest, in my opinion there is nothing wrong with Vista once you get SP1 installed (free download, available from Microsoft if it isn't already installed on the machine when you get it) and PROVIDED you get the hardware to run it. My home computer still uses XP because I've had no need to upgrade it, and Windows 7 will probably come out before I think I'll need to upgrade it. However, my laptop I use for work came with Vista and I've been really happy with it so far. The only thing that annoys me is User Account Control, but a few clicks disables it.

(Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Turn UAC on or off -> Uncheck "Use UAC" -> Click OK)

I did try Vista when it first came out, and like most operating systems when they're first released I had many problems. Windows 95 was the same, so was Windows 98 until SE, so was XP until SP1, and Windows 7 will more than LIKELY be no different. It's hard to work all the kinks out of any piece of software or an OS until it gets out to a wider audience who will put it to tests that even the developers didn't think of.Agreed- I used to dislike Vista myself until I realized that I was being a douche since I never even used it before.

My laptop has Vista Ultimate. Same as QUAXO I find UAC to be the only annoying thing- but only when I need to use the touchpad to click it. Otherwise I click it. haven't gotten around to disabling it since I reinstalled.