Dual Boot - Vista Home Premium & XP Pro

[VistaUser]

My laptop came with Vista Home Premium x64 preinstalled. It shipped without
separate OS disks but it has a service partition which allows the user to
create recovery disks to reset the notebook back to its factory settings in
case of a hard drive failure or to simply reset the system from the service
partition without the use of the recovery disks.

Now that I have been using the system for several months, I would like to
install a 32 bit Windows XP Professional OS on the laptop in order to be
able to use some programs that will not run under a 64 bit OS. I have
installed Virtual PC on the notebook but because of the USB limitations of
VPC, only part of the 32 bit software issues were resolved. Some programs
require that I attach external devices, e.g. a GPS device, to the notebook
and the software will not work under the 64 bit OS and it will not work on
the VPC 32 bit Win XP Pro either.

My intention is to uninstall the VPC and install the 32 bit Win XP Pro
license on the note book.

Here's my problem: How do I do this without the Vista Home Premium x64 OS
disks? Vista was preinstalled and I do not know how to create a new
partition on the hard drive to install the 32 bit Win XP Pro OS.

 

[Tobias Weber]

My intention is to uninstall the VPC and install the 32 bit Win XP Pro
license on the note book.

Here's my problem: How do I do this without the Vista Home Premium x64 OS
disks? Vista was preinstalled and I do not know how to create a new
partition on the hard drive to install the 32 bit Win XP Pro OS.

Both the XP that came with VPC and the Vista you bought with the machine
are just OEM licenses. In contrast to the retail version they AFAIK
forbid what you want to do. It may still be technically possible, but I
don't know how.

 

[Malke]

My laptop came with Vista Home Premium x64 preinstalled. It shipped
without separate OS disks but it has a service partition which allows the
user to create recovery disks to reset the notebook back to its factory
settings in case of a hard drive failure or to simply reset the system
from the service partition without the use of the recovery disks.

Now that I have been using the system for several months, I would like to
install a 32 bit Windows XP Professional OS on the laptop in order to be
able to use some programs that will not run under a 64 bit OS. I have
installed Virtual PC on the notebook but because of the USB limitations of
VPC, only part of the 32 bit software issues were resolved. Some programs
require that I attach external devices, e.g. a GPS device, to the notebook
and the software will not work under the 64 bit OS and it will not work on
the VPC 32 bit Win XP Pro either.

My intention is to uninstall the VPC and install the 32 bit Win XP Pro
license on the note book.

Here's my problem: How do I do this without the Vista Home Premium x64 OS
disks? Vista was preinstalled and I do not know how to create a new
partition on the hard drive to install the 32 bit Win XP Pro OS.

You don't need the Visa disks. You need to partition your hard drive and
install XP on the new partition. Before you do this, you should check on
your laptop mftr.'s tech support site to make sure there are XP drivers. If
there aren't, forget about it.

I like Acronis Disk Director for partitioning but Vista can do simple
partitioning natively. You should be able to shrink the Vista partition to
make room for XP. There are quite a few links explaining this here:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=partitioning+with+Vista&btnG=Search

The optimal way to multiple-boot different operating systems is to install
the oldest MS one first, but with some extra work you can install XP after
Vista is already there.

Dual Booting Windows Vista & Windows XP -
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html

Install Windows XP On A Machine Already Running Windows Vista (MVP John
Barnett) -
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/install_windows_xp_on_machine_running_vista.htm

Again, it is *imperative* that before you do any of this you:

1. Check to make sure XP drivers exist for your machine.
2. Make recovery disks for your current operating system.
3. Back up your data before continuing with partitioning because Stuff
Happens.

If there are no XP drivers for your laptop, you might want to try VMware
Workstation instead of VPC. VMware handles USB quite well and IMO is more
elegant and sophisticated than VPC. They have a trial version I believe.

Malke

 

[Mick Murphy]

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm

Have a read of the above link.

 

[John Barnes]

In addition to the excellent post by Malke, be aware that each time you boot
into XP you will lose the shadow copies and restore points in Vista.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

My laptop came with Vista Home Premium x64 preinstalled. It shipped
without separate OS disks but it has a service partition which allows
the user to create recovery disks to reset the notebook back to its
factory settings in case of a hard drive failure or to simply reset the
system from the service partition without the use of the recovery disks.

Now that I have been using the system for several months, I would like
to install a 32 bit Windows XP Professional OS on the laptop in order to
be able to use some programs that will not run under a 64 bit OS. I
have installed Virtual PC on the notebook but because of the USB
limitations of VPC, only part of the 32 bit software issues were
resolved. Some programs require that I attach external devices, e.g. a
GPS device, to the notebook and the software will not work under the 64
bit OS and it will not work on the VPC 32 bit Win XP Pro either.

My intention is to uninstall the VPC and install the 32 bit Win XP Pro
license on the note book.

Here's my problem: How do I do this without the Vista Home Premium x64
OS disks? Vista was preinstalled and I do not know how to create a new
partition on the hard drive to install the 32 bit Win XP Pro OS.

First and foremost, if the specific computer model in question was
designed specifically for Vista, there may well be no WinXP-specific
device drivers available to make the computer's diverse components work
properly. If this proves to be the case, installing WinXP in a virtual
machine would be your best - possibly only - option, anyway. Consult
the computer's manufacturer about the availability of device drivers.
Secondly, adding another OS might void any support agreements and,
sometimes, even the warranty. Again, consult the computer's
manufacturer for specifics.

If WinXP do device drivers exist, then you can proceed.

Normally, the older OS must be installed first unless you wish to
acquire and use some 3rd-party partition and boot management utility.
(In which case you have to follow the instructions provided by whatever
3rd party solution you select.) However, this KB Article (not for the
faint of heart or technically-challenged) explains how to repair the
Vista boot process after installing WinXP:

Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of
the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

MS-MVP John Barnett's Guide is considerably more user-friendly:
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/install_windows_xp_on_machine_running_vista.htm



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[John Barnes]

Well, if you are going to mention that way, shouldn't you mention that a 3rd
party boot manager and Bit-Locker can also be used?

First they have to know the problem exists.

 

[Earle Horton]

Have you contacted the manufacturer to find out whether OS install disks or
a recovery DVD is available? You would be in trouble if you had to replace
your hard drive. If they won't provide you with anything then the recovery
partition is probably 10 GB or so, much of it empty space, and you could
easily back it up to a DVD. You could also back it up to an external USB
interface hard drive.

There is another way to install an earlier operating system without
interfering with Vista or its Boot Manager. Once you create your second
partition, go into Disk Manager, make that partition "Active", reboot and
install XP on it. The new XP install won't interfere with either Vista or
its Boot Manager. If you want to get back to Vista, simply make the Vista
partition active again and reboot the machine. If you later decide you want
a multi-boot user interface, you can install one using VistaBootPro or
BCDEdit, the tool that ships with Vista.

Chances are also real good that your laptop has a SATA drive in it and that
it is easily removable. SATA drives of reasonable size are pretty cheap
now. If you are going to use 32-bit XP most of the time then you could swap
in a new drive, install XP, and put the Vista system on the shelf for the
next time you need it. There are many ways to skin a cat.

Earle

 

[VistaUser]

Both the XP that came with VPC and the Vista you bought with the machine
are just OEM licenses. In contrast to the retail version they AFAIK
forbid what you want to do. It may still be technically possible, but I
don't know how.

The "XP" did not "come with VPC". I had a local computer retailer make a desktop PC for me about 4 years ago. As part of that, I purchased a license for Win XP Pro. That desktop is now contributing its recyclable metals to help the environment. I kept the OS disks and I believe there is nothing in the license agreement that prevents its use on another computer. As I mentioned in my post, my intention is to uninstall the VPC, thus uninstalling Windows XP from the notebook before I install it as the second OS on the notebook. I know of no legal restriction that prevents me from installing Windows XP on a notebook that shipped with Windows Vista preinstalled.

 

[VistaUser]

You don't need the Visa disks. You need to partition your hard drive and
install XP on the new partition. Before you do this, you should check on
your laptop mftr.'s tech support site to make sure there are XP drivers.
If
there aren't, forget about it.

I like Acronis Disk Director for partitioning but Vista can do simple
partitioning natively. You should be able to shrink the Vista partition to
make room for XP. There are quite a few links explaining this here:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=partitioning+with+Vista&btnG=Search

The optimal way to multiple-boot different operating systems is to install
the oldest MS one first, but with some extra work you can install XP after
Vista is already there.

Dual Booting Windows Vista & Windows XP -
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html

Install Windows XP On A Machine Already Running Windows Vista (MVP John
Barnett) -
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/install_windows_xp_on_machine_running_vista.htm

Again, it is *imperative* that before you do any of this you:

1. Check to make sure XP drivers exist for your machine.
2. Make recovery disks for your current operating system.
3. Back up your data before continuing with partitioning because Stuff
Happens.

If there are no XP drivers for your laptop, you might want to try VMware
Workstation instead of VPC. VMware handles USB quite well and IMO is more
elegant and sophisticated than VPC. They have a trial version I believe.

Malke

Thanks for the in depth reply. I will study it before I attempt to install
the second OS on the notebook. I will check with Hewlett Packard regarding
the XP drivers. I assume you're talking about drivers for the hard drives,
DVD drives, video, sound, etc.

I made the recovery disks as soon as I began using the notebook. As a
matter a fact, I believe that HP actually put a "create recovery disk"
option in the initial setup of the PC, right out of the box. I seem to
recall a prompt on first boot asking if I wished to create the disks. I had
a choice of creating a three DVD set of recovery disks or a nine CD set. I
have the three recovery DVDs.

I learned the hard way, way back in the DOS 3.2 days that one NEVER installs
an OS on a computer that already has data on it without backing it up. I
have all my data backed up and I have the CDs for every program I have
installed on my computer.

 

[VistaUser]

The notebook has two separate hard drives. Would installing the second OS
on the second hard drive [d:] prevent the problem you mention. I have never
run a dual boot PC. Would installing the second OS (Windows XP Pro) on D
contain Windows XP to the D drive so that restore points for Win XP would be
written to the D drive while restore points for Vista would be on C?

 

[VistaUser]

If you don't have a Vista installation DVD, then a problem you will
encounter when you install XP afterwards in the second partition is this
will wipe out the Vista bootloader and so then you will only have the
ability to enter XP. You need to run Startup Repair in order to correct
this. But without the Vista installation DVD, you will only be able to
do this if you go to this site to download the makings for a Vista
recovery CD (and it is a CD, not a DVD) and then burn it to the CD:

'Windows Vista Recovery Disc Download — The NeoSmart Files'
(http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/)


--
LeeTutor

If this answer has been of help to you, then please add to my Reputation
by clicking on the middle icon at the top right. :geek:

As I mentioned in my original post, the notebook shipped without OS disks.
I created a three DVD set of recovery disks which I believe are an image of
the service partition the computer manufacturer preinstalled. It is not a
Windows Vista OS disk that would allow me to reinstall Vista. When used,
the recovery DVDs reset the computer to its original factory settings.

 

[John Barnes]

It makes no difference what partition it is installed on, even other hd's,
Vista must be hidden to make it safe. Those methods mentioned are the ones
that work.

The notebook has two separate hard drives. Would installing the second OS
on the second hard drive [d:] prevent the problem you mention. I have
never run a dual boot PC. Would installing the second OS (Windows XP Pro)
on D contain Windows XP to the D drive so that restore points for Win XP
would be written to the D drive while restore points for Vista would be on
C?

In addition to the excellent post by Malke, be aware that each time you
boot into XP you will lose the shadow copies and restore points in Vista.

 

[John Barnes]

You would be surprised by the number of users that have gotten complacent
about backups since those days.

 

[Kevin Stailey]

In short, you can't run a dual bootable HDD without establishing a second (Or more) Bootable Partition. You can back door this without a complete re-install of Vista but you will need a program such as Nortons Partition Magic. Second. Your laptop should have come with a Recovery or OEM OS Disk in the event you have a system crash. PC builders such as Dell, HP, etc include these in the disk bundle that comes with their PC's. If you have this disk you can Re-Install the Primary OS (Should be Vista) but you have to delete the partitions in place, and then make New ones. Vista will have to go on the Primary Partition and XP on the Secondary Partition. I am attempting to run a Dual Boot on my new Dell Laptop as we speak, but so far it is not working. Win XP gets to the starting Windows script then the blue screen of hard crash comes on and it won't go any further than that. I'm here now because I was researching the reasons why this might be happening. I split a 250GB HDD down the middle for the 2 Partitions. I am wondering as a thought just crossed my mind if since I used Vista 64 bit to set up the partitions if there is a communication error with Win XP when trying to access the HDD after the initial setup is performed BECAUSE Vista is NOT a DOS related OS system install but its own new Win PE. Don't know yet but I am going to play with mine to see what works. I hope I helped you though.
Kev

 

[VistaUser]

In short, you can't run a dual bootable HDD without establishing a second
(Or more) Bootable Partition. You can back door this without a complete
re-install of Vista but you will need a program such as Nortons Partition
Magic. Second. Your laptop should have come with a Recovery or OEM OS Disk
in the event you have a system crash. PC builders such as Dell, HP, etc
include these in the disk bundle that comes with their PC's. If you have
this disk you can Re-Install the Primary OS (Should be Vista) but you have
to delete the partitions in place, and then make New ones. Vista will have
to go on the Primary Partition and XP on the Secondary Partition. I am
attempting to run a Dual Boot on my new Dell Laptop as we speak, but so
far it is not working. Win XP gets to the starting Windows script then the
blue screen of hard crash comes on and it won't go any further than that.
I'm here now because I was researching the reasons why this might be
happening. I split a 250GB HDD down the middle for the 2 Partitions. I am
wondering as a thought just crossed my mind if since I used Vista 64 bit
to set up the partitions if there is a communication error with Win XP
when trying to access the HDD after the initial setup is performed BECAUSE
Vista is NOT a DOS related OS system install but its own new Win PE. Don't
know yet but I am going to play with mine to see what works. I hope I
helped you though.
Kev

When I contacted HP to ascertain whether my notebook would run on Windows XP
Pro, I was informed that it would not. The PC was built specifically to run
on Vista and there are no available drivers for it to run XP so I have
abandoned the plan to dual boot it.

 

[Gordon]

in message news:[email protected]...

When I contacted HP to ascertain whether my notebook would run on Windows
XP Pro, I was informed that it would not. The PC was built specifically
to run on Vista and there are no available drivers for it to run XP so I
have abandoned the plan to dual boot it.

You could use virtual PC and install XP in that....

 

[Bruce Chambers]

In short, you can't run a dual bootable HDD without establishing a second (Or more) Bootable Partition.

That's not true, at all, at least with Microsoft operating systems. In
fact, it's just the opposite: there can be only one "Active Primary"
(iow, bootable) partition.





--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Neither is XP DOS related. Neither is 2000 DOS related.

Nor was WinNT.

The answer to this is simple. XP *must* be installed first. When
installing Vista, it will detect the XP install and add it to the boot
menu.

Not necessarily, though it's certainly easier that way.

This is the way it *always* works with Windows. 2000 needed to be
installed before XP also. The oldest OS needs to be installed first.

Again, not necessarily. There have been work-arounds to this issue
dating from the Win9x/WinNT days.

I have XP, Vista and Server 2008 on a single machine. All were
installed in the correct order. All work fine.

This KB Article (not for the faint of heart or technically-challenged)
explains how to repair the Vista boot process after installing WinXP:

Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of
the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

MS-MVP John Barnett's Guide is considerably more user-friendly:
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/install_windows_xp_on_machine_running_vista.htm


For Win9x/WinNT-2k-XP combinations:

Install Windows 98 after XP is Installed.
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Bruce Chambers]

When I contacted HP to ascertain whether my notebook would run on
Windows XP Pro, I was informed that it would not. The PC was built
specifically to run on Vista and there are no available drivers for it
to run XP so I have abandoned the plan to dual boot it.

Dual-booting is no longer necessary in a great many situations. Why not
download a Virtual Machine application, such as Microsoft's VirtualPC
2007 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.asp?) or Innotek's
VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) and run WinXP and your legacy
applications within a virtual computer? Both are free and work with Vista.

NOTE: Microsoft does not support the use of VirtualPC 2007 on Vista
Home editions, but several people have reported that it works. Your
results may vary.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot