Dual Boot Vista & Windows XP

[Jim]

Planning to build a new system in the near future and would like to run both
Vista & Windows XP Pro in a dual boot configuration. Is it best to install
the OS's on two separate hard drives and what about the application
programs?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Jim

 

[John Barnes]

It really makes no difference, except if you install both systems totally
independently, then separate drives and control thru the BIOS will allow you
to boot to either system if a hard drive fails. You can use EasyBCD or
VistaBootPro to give you boot choice thru the Vista Boot Manager also. You
will have to install your programs on each system, but you can direct them
to the same directory. Most programs will function this way, a few will
not. A few will execute from the other partition without installing. Don't
forget that when you boot into XP you lose your Restore Points and shadow
copies in Vista. Restore points has saved many op.

 

[Vic Baron]

Want to be sure I understand this, John - booting into XP will lose *Vista*
restore points but will booting into Vista lose *XP's*?

I don't mind losing Vista's while I test but wouldn't want to lose the XP
restore points until I'm ready to switch over.

Thanx,

Vic

 

[John Barnes]

No it will not. Vista was written backward compatible, but XP has not and
will not be rewritten to accommodate Vista volume processing.

 

[Bert Kinney]

You may want to read this first Jim.

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

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

 

[cqui3]

Disable restore points inVista.

Want to be sure I understand this, John - booting into XP will lose
*Vista* restore points but will booting into Vista lose *XP's*?

I don't mind losing Vista's while I test but wouldn't want to lose the XP
restore points until I'm ready to switch over.

Thanx,

Vic