Dual boot 32 and 64-bit Vista

[pbl]

I have a hi-spec notebook with 32-bit Vista Ultimate installed and recently
discovered that my notebook is capable of running 64-bit Vista. Is it
possible to setup a dual boot? I have some essential software that is not
64-bit compatible.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Yes, it is. You'll need to carve out space on the drive for the second
installation, and you'll need an additional license for Vista. To carve out
space, run diskmgmt.msc and shrink the existing volume. At a minimum I'd
suggest you allow 20-25GB for the x64 install. If disk manager cannot carve
out that much, you'll need to use a third party tool like Acronis Disk
Manager or BootIT NG (disk manager may run into unmoveable files and cannot
shrink a volume beyond that, the other programs can).

Once space has been created, boot with the x64 disk and begin setup. You can
create the new partition and format it as part of setup. Select it and
installation should be pretty straight forward from there. Setup will create
the dual boot menu as part of the installation.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have a hi-spec notebook with 32-bit Vista Ultimate installed and recently
discovered that my notebook is capable of running 64-bit Vista. Is it
possible to setup a dual boot? I have some essential software that is not
64-bit compatible.

Yes it is (see Rick Rogers's reply), but why do you want to do this?
There is likely no advantage to your doing so.

 

[pbl]

Yes it is (see Rick Rogers's reply), but why do you want to do this?
There is likely no advantage to your doing so.

I have some software that is not compatible with Vista 64-bit.

 

[pbl]

Hi,

Yes, it is. You'll need to carve out space on the drive for the second
installation, and you'll need an additional license for Vista. To carve
out space, run diskmgmt.msc and shrink the existing volume. At a minimum
I'd suggest you allow 20-25GB for the x64 install. If disk manager cannot
carve out that much, you'll need to use a third party tool like Acronis
Disk Manager or BootIT NG (disk manager may run into unmoveable files and
cannot shrink a volume beyond that, the other programs can).

Once space has been created, boot with the x64 disk and begin setup. You
can create the new partition and format it as part of setup. Select it and
installation should be pretty straight forward from there. Setup will
create the dual boot menu as part of the installation.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

Thanks for the help Rick.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have some software that is not compatible with Vista 64-bit.

OK, but if it were me, I would just run only 32-bit Vista then. Having
to reboot to run that software is a nuisance, and you will get very
little benefit from running the 64-bit version..

Alternatively, look into buying a newer version of the software that
won't run under 64-bit Vista; it may not be that much more expensive
than buying dual-boot software.

 

[Steeelers]

I have a hi-spec notebook with 32-bit Vista Ultimate installed and recently
discovered that my notebook is capable of running 64-bit Vista. Is it
possible to setup a dual boot? I have some essential software that is not
64-bit compatible.

You would still need to enter 2 different license keys , one for each
operating system . You can't use the same keys for both . So like Ken
said , why ?