Windows 7: How to dual boot windows7 and Linux ?

Hello all
I want to install linux along with windows 7 on my Dell studio 15. For this as i have read on the threads that C: drive needs to be shrunk as it is the active partition . And for linux at least 10 GB should be kept as unallocated space . But when i tried to shrink my C: drive then the available space for shrinking is shown to be just 39 MB which is highly insufficient . So , please suggest how to increase this size and install linux on my PC .

Any suggestions are most welcome !!
Thanks in anticipation !!

i would have just pop in the live CD, and use the installer to shrink the space for linux. i shrink or create the partitions inside windows, i let the installer do it, like in ubuntu, it has a slider that you allocate for how much space you want to give for linux, then it creates the needed partition and installs. its that simple!

can you create a screen shot of your disk management to see what u created. right click on computer and choose manage and then click on the disk management on the left.