>Yupp. Multi boot practice started under W2K, as the "difficult" setup back then

Under, but not in. As far as I can remember, there never were any windowses which would allow that - each one would wipe the boot sector, so any non-m$ (and m$) boots would be gone. It was always Linux that you had to install _after_ windowses, in order to have a multiboot, because it was doing the courtesy that windowses never did, to allow other boots on the same disk to survive its installation.

Now things may have changed, the last time I installed one of the windowses was when w7 was still somewhat fresh, I wouldn't know. And, frankly, I wouldn't care.