potential Concerns

so before i do anything with MooMoo, here are the things i'm worried about wiht this install:
*Much newer machine.. will everything be supported? Core 2 Duo, can linux take advantage of that?
*unmovable portions of hard drive are about a third in.. if i do a parition on the active windows partition will i fuck it?
*future vista upgrade - will this wipe grub after i've had linux working for a couple months?
*i'm retarded - when i was upgrading blanco, i had been working in linux non-stop for hours everyday.. now i haven't done much in it from an administrative point of view in a while.. i don't remember shit.

well off we go..

here is the page i think i'm going to follow to parition my active windows partition ..
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/05/08/dual-boot-laptop.html