If you *really* can't live without Windows (nothing to be ashamed of, I still need to use it occasionally) there are lots of ways to have the best of both worlds. The easiest way would be to use a live cd or, even better, install Linux to a flash drive (check out a program called unetbootin). With a persistent install you can save the changes you make and once you reboot you'll be back into windows. Another good way would be to install a virtual machine and install Linux into that (check out vmware or virtualbox. There are plenty of others to). This will allow you to run Linux *on top of* Windows within an application which is pretty damn handy if you want to use both at the same time. Wubi is an installer for Ubuntu which will set up your machine to dual boot (where you choose which OS to start when you boot your machine). The difference is that Linux is installed inside a file on Windows so if you dont have the confidence to play around with your filesystem you dont need to. It can also be removed with the "add/remove" program in control panel. If none of these appeal to you, you could just get a second machine. Something cheap will work but IMO alot of the modern distros are wasted on older hardware. You really want a machine that can do it justice, but it's still an option. Finally you could just suck it up, be a man, and install it on your main machine I know you posted a few days ago so might not even still be around but maybe this post will help someone else (even if it is slightly off topic)