XP and Vista on same machine?

[halfasleeps]

a long time ago i had a computer that when I booted it would as me to load either xp or linux suse 9, ...I didnt set it up though a friend of mine did.

I now have a computer with a single 500gb hard drive with 2 partitions a 150gb partition for my OS (vista) and a 350 gb partition for my files I was thinking about shrinking my 350 gb partition to about 300 and using the other 50 gb to instal xp (so I can run some old software that wont run on vista properly). When I boot, I want it to ask me to load either vista or xp, then whenever I am in vista or xp either way I still see my 300gb files partition so I can easily share files from os to os.

I am not sure how to do this, I think maybe all I have to do is open a disk manager shrink my 350 partition to 300 gb then boot with my XP disc and instal xp on the 50gb space. Is that all I have to do? I am scared afterwards it will just boot xp since it is the last os I installed? will my machine automatically ask me weather to boot either XP or vista afterwards or is there something I have to setup to be able to pick which OS to load everytime I boot?


Thanks!

[chris_fuel]

The best guess I can recommend is to use something like Partition Magic to partition up your drives, then use the boot magic utility inside to do the boots between vista and XP. Should also have a way to set the default boot as well.

[internetSurfer]

You can use this tool for partition management or the one in the tutorial.
You will have to burn the .iso and boot from CD/DVD drive.
It has many utilities and will assist in partioning the HD.

Hiren's BootCD 9.4
http://www.middown.com/modules.php?n...rticle&sid=595

Then you can use this tutorial to install XP.

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first)
http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with XP installed first)
http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista

[halfasleeps]

I was just looking into my disk-management and I already have 26gb of unallocated space, so should I just instal XP on the 26gb space and then start this tuttorial http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp at "Restoring Vista and dual booting"??

Thanks.

[kotsengkuba]

I'm not sure with desktops PCs if this is possible because for most notebook PCs, you have to switch BIOS versions if you want either XP or Vista

[wwb_99]

Not sure what you are talking about--we've got alot of identical hardware running XP or Vista depending on instance with zero bios tweaking.

If your hardware has the umph (if you are running vista, it probably does), best bet is to run MS Virtual PC or VMWare and just host an XP Virtual Machine. It's alot less trouble than dual booting while keeping the same capabilities.

[kotsengkuba]

I work in a notebook manufacturing company and from our experience, we need to create a different BIOS for Vista and XP platforms because failure to do some will cause some hardware not working properly. Anyway, I'm not sure if this also apply with desktop PCs.

[wwb_99]

Let me know which one so I can avoid buying them . . .

[ramzirafeeq]

I unsuccessfully tried to dual boot with my HP Pavillion Notebook which came with pre-installed Vista Ultimate.

I desparately needed to have XP on my machine as I wanted to connect to my work via VPN.

Nothing worked ... then came trying this with MS Virtual PC 2007... gave me exacly what I was looking for. I can now run Visa as the Host OS and XP as Guest OS. Enjoying best of both worlds..
MS Virtial PC 2007 is highly recommended if you need both OS running in the same machine...

[halfasleeps]

ok so I booted from my XP disc and when it came time to select where to install XP it only listed one space:

C: [unkown partition] 131072 MB


which doesnt make sense to me because if I go into disk managment in vista it says I have C:146.48 GB, X: 292.97 GB, and 26.31 GB unalocated space.

none of which are even 131072MB which comes out to 128 GB

Anyone know what to make of this?

[logic_earth]

I work in a notebook manufacturing company and from our experience, we need to create a different BIOS for Vista and XP platforms because failure to do some will cause some hardware not working properly. Anyway, I'm not sure if this also apply with desktop PCs.

Dell Inspiron E1705 - No BIOS tweaks or switches, Handles Vista and XP at the same time. Also Linux and OS X.

E1705 is a laptop btw...

[internetSurfer]

I highly recommend you burn this iso and use the utility partition magic:

Hiren's BootCD 9.4
http://www.middown.com/modules.php?n...rticle&sid=595

This will show you all partitions and will allow you to create new
partitions or resize partitions.

[halfasleeps]

I also tried to do the virtual PC and it wants me to share my ram across the 2 and I dont want to do that, I want to have full power whenever I run each one.

[bob_d]

I'm useing BootIt NG and Image for Windows and couldn't be happier with the results:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm

Have you looked at VistaBootPRO?:
http://www.vistabootpro.org/

[guitarbinge]

can you put xp, vista and linux on the same machine?

[peterlh3]

if you do 2 window on one machine, wont that make your pc even slower and plus vista needs alot of rams to run it.