Recommended Hard Drive Partition Size for Vista Basic?

I have a friend who is buying a Dell computer which will have Vista basic and a 160 GB hard drive (7200 RPM). Dell can configure the hard drive to 40, 60 or 80 GB primary with the rest secondary. Any suggestions? (besides go with XP)

Also, how will a partition come in handy? She'll be the only user of the laptop.

Thanks

 

I would go with 60 or 80.

As for the second partition, you can use it to keep files separated (from the main partition) and you can use it to store backups of the main parition.

 

thanks

 

i have vista home premium and my vista partition is 40gb
as stated above second partition can store data files.
so if windows wont boot and needs reinstalling no data will be lost.
lodore

 

Also running home premium with 35GB partition (half of which is free space).