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It is without a doubt best to keep NTFS. NTFS is much more robust and self-healing than FAT32.

However, you may desire to repartition your hard drive to make room for a separate FAT32 drive space. There are multiple utilities available that will let you do this without rebuilding your hard drive from scratch. After installation, programs such as PartitionMagic or Acronis Disk Director can make a FAT32 drive area from some of your NTFS free space in as little as 30 minutes.

My favorite disk partition tool is Paragon's "Partition Manager", at partition-manager.com, or 7tools.com. I had used "Partition Magic" for years, but it grew quirky in some corner cases (perhaps it's better, now that Symantec bought Powerquest, I don't know). So a year or two ago, I went scouting for a more solid equivalent, downloaded "Partition Manager", and have been quite happy with it since.

It will let you convert NTFS to FAT32 in place, which the native Microsoft tools don't support. I still use some FAT32 partitions, mostly because the read/write access to them from Linux, which I dual boot, has been more mature than for NTFS. One also needs FAT for Windows 98 or prior access (not even FAT32 works with Windows 95 or prior),

Partition Manager includes recovery disk and a boot manager for dual booting. Though I've gone to Terabyte's BootIt Next Generation for my multiple boot needs - it's seriously good for that, if you don't need hand holding documentation. Be sure to read its documentation however, as it can be a loaded M16 in the wrong hands. BootIt includes some partition editing and some partition imaging support, though I find Partition Manager more complete for the former, and Symantec's Norton Ghost for the later. If you are going to try using Ghost, see also The Radified Guide to Norton Ghost.

I've used just about every boot manager ever made, both Windows and Linux based. BootIt is the best for clearly implementing the full possible feature set, and having a reasonably straight forward, no artificial limits, user interface to access it all. It's been solid as a rock so far. Other than the problem that the documentation reads more like source code, it's the best.

Other partition managers include Partition Commander from V Communications, and the Ranish Partition Manager. I used Partition Commander for a little while a few years ago; don't recall why it didn't stick with me. I haven't used the Ranish Partition Manager, but have heard good things about it. And of course there's always fdisk, which some oldtimers swear by. However, I find that the gui interfaces really help me avoid screwups here, and so avoid fdisk unless cornered. I almost always keep a small windows partition at the front of my disks, just to hold my preferred partition manager, dual booting and imaging tools. This is one of the areas where I don't find the Linux tools competitive yet, along with Quicken, TaxCut and my dear copy of the ancient Lotus Improv spreadsheet program.

you may desire to repartition your hard drive to make room for a separate FAT32 drive space.

Excellent suggestion. Make a Fat32 partition and load the DOS programs there. It should be a minimally invasive procedure if you use Partition Magic to do the job. Though I'm not sure if PM would do NTFS to FAT32 re-partitioning.