I currently have a laptop with Windows Vista, and I'd like to upgrade to Windows 7 and also install Ubuntu Linux as dual boot. I need to make disk partitions used by Windows smaller to make room for Linux.
What is easiest way to upgrade? Should I resize Vista partition first to make room for linux installation, or should I upgrade first to Windows 7 and resize partitions after upgrade.
For typical dual-boot configurations it is always a good idea to install Windows first, and the Linux-based OS afterwards. Modern versions of all major (read user-friendly) Linux distributions will allow you to shrink existing partitions to make place for the new OS you are about to install. They will also install a boot loader (ie grub) that is preconfigured to make the other OS (or multiple other OSes) available at boot.
And as noted previously, there is the Wubi option which installs the Linux OS to a single file system image located within the Windows volume.
You could:
Upgrade to Windows 7 then:
Install Ubuntu using Wubu [Link: http://wubi-installer.org/]
This will install Ubuntu like any other Windows program. When the install is complete you can boot to Windows or Ubuntu. If you find that you don't want Ubuntu any longer you can un-install it like you would another program.
HTH.
Best is to upgrade to Windows 7 first, and then use the disk management feature in Windows 7 or any other partition manager to make space for Ubuntu.
Wubi install is another option as well.
