It can probably be done with the system's boot manager; however, the way I
would do it would be to get a third party partition manager such as this:
BootIt Next Generation is available from:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html and it does partitioning,
makes a compressed image, does many other partitioning chores and is a boot
manager. It is not quite as easy to use as Partition Magic but it is half
the cost and has more features. Unlike the crippled PMagic demo, BING is a
*full function* demo you can try for FREE for 30 days. The web site has a
lot of support articles.
With this product, you can create a partition for the Vista installation and
leave lots of room for XP to grow. You could also create another partition
to hold files that are common to both systems. When you install Vista, BING
would allow you to hide the XP partition so that it did not accidentally get
upgraded. Once the systems are installed, you create a boot menu page that
allows you to choose which system will be booted. If you think this might
be the right thing for you, there are articles that will be of interest
located here:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/sup...generation.htm
I no longer dual boot--I use VirtualPC and install W98 within it; therefore,
I am unable to provide information as you requested. However, on various
occasions I had four versions of Windows installed using BING and everything
pertaining to dual booting worked flawlessly.
--
Regards
Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience
"James Franks" <2346534-9090-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Right, I think its time for me to try Vista again, but this time I would
> like to dual boot, ie leave my Windows XP Pro as it is and install Vista
> on
> a separate partition on the same drive. I have plenty of space (its a
> 500GB
> drive) and only using 170GB of it. So how do I do it and how do I choose
> between WindowsXP and Windows Vista at start up? Is it straightforward?
>
> Thanks in advance. I would apprecaite hearing from anyone who has
> acheived
> this sort of setup.
>
> Regards
> James
>
>
>