I have Windows Vista, which I enjoy and find works very well, though I have
a very few programs that haven't been updated past Windows XP. I own an
unused OEM copy of Windows XP and have done a bit of research about creating
a dual boot machine. It appears that this can be done, but not always
easily and some have not been successful, according to some boards that I
read. So, does anyone have an opinion about attempting a dual boot vs
installing Microsoft Virtual Machine 2007? Is this pretty easy? Is this a
good way to use XP programs? Any suggestions, tips, warnings about pitfalls
will be appreciated.

David

BTW, please note that I am quite pleased with Vista, find that it works well
and have no intention of abandoning it for XP. Please do not post to tell
me that Vista is no good, or that I should buy a Mac. I will respect your
computing choices; please give me the same courtesy.

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 23:34:53 -0500, "David"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I have Windows Vista, which I enjoy and find works very well, though I have
>a very few programs that haven't been updated past Windows XP. I own an
>unused OEM copy of Windows XP and have done a bit of research about creating
>a dual boot machine. It appears that this can be done, but not always
>easily and some have not been successful, according to some boards that I
>read. So, does anyone have an opinion about attempting a dual boot vs
>installing Microsoft Virtual Machine 2007? Is this pretty easy? Is this a
>good way to use XP programs? Any suggestions, tips, warnings about pitfalls
>will be appreciated.

I do just what your are considering doing, running an OEM copy of XP
in Virtual Machine 2007 under Vista Ultimate. It works just fine,
subject to the normal limitations of VM. The main problem I have with
VM is its lack of support for USB devices.

Chris

Hi David,

Running the virtual machine is my preference, as there is no multibooting
involved (I always hated the wait when changing OS's). The two issues I can
see with it are a) as Chris mentioned there is no means of adding USB
peripherals to the virtual machine and b) the amount of installed ram on the
system. On the latter point, when you run a VM you need to allocate a share
of your physical ram to it. Should your system contain only a minimal
amount, say 512MB, this may cause an issue where you have an insufficient
amount to run both OS's simultaneously. If you have 2GB and share 512MB to
the VM, or a 1GB/256MB split that's fine, but I wouldn't go any lower than
that.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"David" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Oj%(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have Windows Vista, which I enjoy and find works very well, though I have
>a very few programs that haven't been updated past Windows XP. I own an
>unused OEM copy of Windows XP and have done a bit of research about
>creating a dual boot machine. It appears that this can be done, but not
>always easily and some have not been successful, according to some boards
>that I read. So, does anyone have an opinion about attempting a dual boot
>vs installing Microsoft Virtual Machine 2007? Is this pretty easy? Is
>this a good way to use XP programs? Any suggestions, tips, warnings about
>pitfalls will be appreciated.
>
> David
>
> BTW, please note that I am quite pleased with Vista, find that it works
> well and have no intention of abandoning it for XP. Please do not post to
> tell me that Vista is no good, or that I should buy a Mac. I will respect
> your computing choices; please give me the same courtesy.