Dual Boot - Same Drive 32 & 64-bit

[Keith Nicholson]

How about best practices for dual booting a new system with both Vista 32 bit
and Vista 64 bit?

I've have requirements on a laptop with a single hard drive to run both
versions of Vista. The goal is to have 64bit be the primary and 32 bit be
available for applications that have not migrated to 64-bit support yet.
Yes, I'll have a 32 bit license and a seperate 64-bit license.

I know to partition to 3 logical drives. How big do the OS partitions need
to be? What order should I proceed, 32 or 64 first? Does it matter whether
I install from DVD or from inside Windows? Finally, any considerations when
installing applications such as Office or SQL Server to reduce storage space
when I have to install both 32-bit and 64-bit versions (yes, I am aware of
licensing purchase of different versions)?

 

[John Barnes]

You didn't say whether you have full, upgrade or OEM versions. I personally
would use 3 primary partitions, but you need at least 1 for the boot files.
Glad to hear you are complying with the various licenses It doesn't
matter which version you install first between 64-bit and 32-bit. How do you
plan on using your partitions and do you have plans to remove one of the
OS's in the future. You will have to install your programs in both systems,
sharing the data, but since the default program file and system file names
are different I have never tried to use the same program files folder across
OS's with different bittness. Just my experiences.

 

[Keith Nicholson]

John,

So far you have confirmed my thoughts. I'll be using full products to
install with the hope that I will not need the 32 bit in 18 months. So with
that said, I should probably install the 64bit first so that the boot files
are on that partition of the three.
--
Best wishes
Keith Nicholson

You didn't say whether you have full, upgrade or OEM versions. I personally
would use 3 primary partitions, but you need at least 1 for the boot files.
Glad to hear you are complying with the various licenses It doesn't
matter which version you install first between 64-bit and 32-bit. How do you
plan on using your partitions and do you have plans to remove one of the
OS's in the future. You will have to install your programs in both systems,
sharing the data, but since the default program file and system file names
are different I have never tried to use the same program files folder across
OS's with different bittness. Just my experiences.

 

[John Barnes]

The boot files will be on the active primary partition on your drive. If
that is the first partition, then that is where you would want to install
Vista64. Regardless of the order installed the boot files go on the system
partition. Since I wanted to transition to 64-bit, I replaced the hardware
and software that was not compatible with 64-bit over about 6 mos. My
biggest adjustment was adjusting to new software and doing some things a
different way. After the initial adjustment and making sure any new
hardware and software are 64-bit compatible, I am very happy, except I would
love a fingerprint reader, but alas, they all seem to be only 32-bit. Good
luck.

John,

So far you have confirmed my thoughts. I'll be using full products to
install with the hope that I will not need the 32 bit in 18 months. So
with
that said, I should probably install the 64bit first so that the boot
files
are on that partition of the three.