At someone's suggestion to use Wubi , I downloaded it but when I
clicked on the .exe to run it I get this message "NTVDM.EXE has stopped
working". I realize this is a Vista problem but I bring up because it happened
in an Ubuntu context. Got any ideas?

You're advice to just install Ubuntu is good, but in doing that I would have to
trash Vista -- no great tragedy -- but I'd like to keep it handy for the things
that only work in Windows. So I'm thinking dual boot, but I'm afraid that might
introduce additional problems to an already volatile mix.

So I hope to hear from folks who went to dual boot and how that went for you and
how you like it. Thanks!