Vista business/XP professional downgrade

I am looking for a new desktop computer, and noticed that a lot of adds for buiness machines offer Vista business, with XP professional downgrade. My question is, If i were to use XP initally, how would i be able to keep Vista to try later, if it is supplied only with an XP disc. Is there some way i could save the supplied os to disc, before installing XP? I would appreciate any advice.
Regards,
Rob.

Most of the ones I've come across are pre-loaded with Vista and recovery partitions / software are all Vista. You have to have your own copy of XP. For a lot of businesses with MS Select agreements this isn't an issue
The XP Pro downgrade is added to say that you can downgrade to XP and the PC will still be supported by the manufacturer - otherwise you can only get support if Vista is installed

Hi, Dual Boot and use both operating programmes�

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with...

How to dual-boot Vista with XP (with XP installed first) http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_xp__ste...

Thanks for the help, I will check it out.
Regards,
Rob.

Dell offer the XP alternative on business systems.

I would stick with XP and miss Vista altogther moving to Windows 7 later.

It wont be long before the likes of Dell offer XP with a 7 upgrade path I reckon.

Surely the easiest way would be to Drive Image to external drive?

Why has no-one suggested that?
am i missing something? LOL