Avoiding program duplication with XP and Vista

[il barbi]

In my PC I have a partition for XP and another for Vista with the dual boot.
Now the PC came with preinstalled Vista and then I created the XP partition
due to the many unnecessary differences at user level and other well known
problems of Vista. Unfortunately I'm obliged to reinstall all the programs
also in the XP partition. The same holds also in the opposite case (first XP
partition and then Vista partition). Now this is boring and wastes HD space.
So I wonder whether there may be a way to avoid duplicating program
installation. I'm not a system engineer but I know it is possible to run in
Vista a program released for XP, I think this is called "compatibility" -
the program calls a system module and this may well be one of Vista rather
than of XP. But in the most common case if we run under Vista a program made
for XP this means we have already uninstalled XP. Now some items of a sw
packet belong to application side, others to system side (libraries,
drivers, entries in the Windows Registry) so it would be nice if only the
system side be duplicated and not the application side
il barbi

 

[Malke]

In my PC I have a partition for XP and another for Vista with the dual
boot. Now the PC came with preinstalled Vista and then I created the XP
partition due to the many unnecessary differences at user level and other
well known problems of Vista. Unfortunately I'm obliged to reinstall all
the programs also in the XP partition. The same holds also in the opposite
case (first XP partition and then Vista partition). Now this is boring and
wastes HD space. So I wonder whether there may be a way to avoid
duplicating program installation.

(snippage)

The answer is no. When you dual-boot, you must install programs under each
operating system exactly the same way you would if the two operating
systems were hosted on two physically discrete computers.

Some programs originally written for XP will run just fine in Vista, such as
Office 2003. However, if you want Office in XP and in Vista, you need two
installations of the program suite.

You can share *data* between two operating systems in a dual-boot by
creating a third partition either on the same hard drive or by having a
second hard drive (internal or external). The extra partition/hard drive
should hold only data.

Malke

 

[il barbi]

The answer is no. When you dual-boot, you must install programs under each
operating system exactly the same way you would if the two operating
systems were hosted on two physically discrete computers.

Some programs originally written for XP will run just fine in Vista, such
as
Office 2003. However, if you want Office in XP and in Vista, you need two
installations of the program suite.

You can share *data* between two operating systems in a dual-boot by
creating a third partition either on the same hard drive or by having a
second hard drive (internal or external). The extra partition/hard drive
should hold only data.

just to understand why, I signal that cases have been reported where
programs written for XP and installed in Vista partition can be run from XP
partition without error
il barbi

 

[Malke]

just to understand why, I signal that cases have been reported where
programs written for XP and installed in Vista partition can be run from
XP partition without error
il barbi

If you feel this will work - and it isn't something that I would do because
of the strong possibility of data and system corruption - then go for it.
Report back on your findings.

Malke

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

just to understand why, I signal that cases have been reported where
programs written for XP and installed in Vista partition can be run from
XP partition without error

I had a go with this using the MKLINK command.

It works for some programs that install cleanly, but not ones that put stuff
in the Windows folder (quite a lot of older software does).

UAC complicated things further, as any programs that are not designed for
multi-user use, and writes data within Program Files gets installed
differently in Vista.

Unless your time and effort is not worth much, I'd suggest you just buy some
larger hard-drives instead of dealing with all that hassle. HDDs are so
cheap people fill them up with media files. Programs take so little space
in comparison.

ss.

 

[cheen]

there are many programs (over 1000) that I have on a seperate hard drive and
those are the ones that I have found that
work with no install needed.. I keep them there and thats it.. lol no
install ever needed...

NOT ALL PROGRAMS CAN WORK THIS WAY, for example Office cannot work this way.

now as for your other question of course you can save space..

you create a partition or drive and you install from both OS onto that
sample place in the parition
for example drive e:/programs

the only problem with this is if you uninstall from one OS, the reains of
the app reistry data will still be on the other OS.

although this is possible, I dont relly recomend it..

you can start by trying to run the apps that you have installed on XP for
example on vista without installing them on vista...

if they work that means that app can work as a no-install, copy it to
another drive and keep it there.. then uninstall it from XP too and just
have it as a no-install app

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

just to understand why, I signal that cases have been reported where
programs written for XP and installed in Vista partition can be run from XP
partition without error
il barbi

It can only work for programs that are stand-alone--usually relatively
small simple program--and don't put entries in the registry or any
supporting files in the Windows folder. If you have experienced
programs that work that way, they must have been of that type.