Vista dual boot and original Vista media

[Guest]

I just purchased a laptop that has Vista re-installed. I want install XP64
for a dual-boot configuration, but am trying to anticipate possible problems
before they happen. I am ALMOST CERTAIN I will be running into the issue
described here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933179

...and am trying to prepare for it. The solution requires one thing I don't
have: a disc containing Vista installation media - that is, Vista Home
Premium was preinstalled on my machine and I got no Vista disc (and they
won't give me one) since I can restore my system from user-created backups or
the installation partition on the HD.

My questions are:
Is there still a "lost media replacement" program of any kind at Microsoft,
and can I supply my product key and get an actual disc?

If I upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate, would that disc do for this purpose?

Thanks...

 

[Mac]

Yes, if you upgrade. Or you can install XP after Vista (it's just
trickier)...

Or have you considered running a virtual machine containing XP on Vista?
There are free MS and other virtual machines (I have Ubuntu 7.04 running
with VirtualBox 1.4 as well as Windows Server 2008 beta 3 running in MS
Virtual PC 2007, all on top of Vista). Just download and install the
appropriate virtual machine and pop in your XP CD.

 

[Guest]

Actually, i think i'm about 100% sure I said i was installing XP after Vista
- and that I was likely to need the Vista disc afterwards, as the article I
linked to discussed.

The reason I want XP to dual-boot is because of the extensive library of
binary code (mostly assembler) I've developed for use with the XP SDK. I
could emulate it in a virtual machine under Vista - but that kind of blows
the whole "tweaked machine code with direct SDK calls for lightning speed"
thing, doesn't it? In fact, a big part of picking up this machine was to
revamp all of my code to take advantage of Core2, new SSE, multicore, etc. -
converting over to a new SDK as well can wait for now!

 

[Guest]

Hi Mac

Do you know if it will it be possible to boot into XP if installed in a
Virtual PC?

My situation: I have PC preinstalled with Vista, need XP, so the IT
department can configure things remotely (and don't want to ditch Vista,
which I think seems quite OK for home app's) so I want one XP partition for
work and one partition for home-stuff.
Would need dual boot obviously (but Vista pre-installed, so too techky for
my temper) .... unless Virtual PC could be the solution.

Would you recommend Virtual PC for that?
Thanks a lot in advance!
BR Peter

 

[Dave]

No.

Install VPC on Vista.
Install XP in VPC, in 2 virtual machines if you want.. and if you have the
licenses.

for more help, go here....
microsoft.public.virtualpc

 

[Mac]

Well, yes, actually. If you install Virtual PC or VirtualBox, you can then
install XP on a virtual hard drive - which could be on any partition you
like - it's just a big file.

Once installed and configured, you can boot it in the virtual machine.

When running your IT folks can configure it just the same as they would if
it was installed natively, with all your work stuff...