Dual Boot - How do i create one?

wazza

Getting a laptop which has vista home premium installed. Would want to create a dual boot. Not sure how to do this but my guess is that i create a partition. Vista will remain on drive C. Will install XP on drive F or whatever letter the new partiton will get. Is this the correct procedure?

albertross_2

You are gonna need a forum of your own soon, with all these threads about a laptop purchase.

Not dual boot, but may do the job, depending on why you want to do it

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

Chippy_Minton

There are guides on the web, though most of them seem to be for adding Vista with XP already installed e.g. http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista, however the procedure should be similar for adding XP to a Vista machine. If the laptop comes with just one partition (C : ), you will have to resize it to make room for a separate partition to install XP on.

Also, it's easier if you have the Vista CD to reinstall if things go wrong, or failing that a restore partition or create restore CDs.

wazza

albertross wrote: »

You are gonna need a forum of your own soon, with all these threads about a laptop purchase.

You are correct

I actually bought two laptops recently. One for myself and one for my nephew. While i am waiting for mine to be delivered i thought it is best to ask as many questions that may crop up so i am prepared when the laptop arrives.

GoofyGAT

Here are some guides to dual-booting the two, adding XP to Vista:

http://www.setup32.com/resource-guides/windows-vista/how-to-dual-boot-vista-and-xp-with-vista.php
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/install_windows_xp_on_machine_running_vista.htm
http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=88231

Note from the 2nd link (also see this MSKB article / more workarounds)

Windows XP does have a problem with Windows Vista's shadow copy feature. This basically means that, when you boot into XP, all system restore points and shadow copies on Windows Vista will be deleted. This is a known problem and one, unfortunately, that Microsoft will not repair. If you are using Windows Vista Ultimate or Enterprise editions you can use Bitlocker Encryption to stop this from happening. Alternatively you could also use a third party boot manager instead. Another option is to image your hard drive, using third party imaging software, such as Acronis True Image.....

G