Dual Booting XP and Vista

[ColTom2]

Hi:

Why would or what advantage is it to upgrade to Vista Premium with dual
booting capabilities? If one is going to upgrade then why not just upgrade.

Frankly I don't see the purpose or advantage of dual booting other than
making you OS more complicated. Maybe someone can explain why?

Thanks

 

[Eric]

Many people are dual booting right now because Vista has some compatability
issues. This way they can have Vista, but at the same time, they can keep
XP running and still be able to run some of their programs on their computer
that they can't normally run if they only had Vista. Why just upgrade if
you aren't going to be able to use programs that you have come to rely on?

 

[Jon]

Hi:

Why would or what advantage is it to upgrade to Vista Premium with dual
booting capabilities? If one is going to upgrade then why not just
upgrade.

Frankly I don't see the purpose or advantage of dual booting other than
making you OS more complicated. Maybe someone can explain why?

Thanks

(1) Dual-booting makes things more secure. If one operating system fails,
you can boot into the other to recover.

(2) You don't have to worry about application compatibility.

 

[Paul Smith]

I dual booted during the Windows Vista beta. So that I always had a fall
back position.

I also dual booted between Windows 9x and XP because I had a 3dfx graphics
card which had no drivers for XP and so games wouldn't run properly or would
run very slow on XP, I did that for a month or so until I got my GeForce 3.

So mainly compatibility and to ease migration.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/

*Remove nospam. to reply by e-mail*

 

[ColTom2]

Hi:

Thanks for all your replies and now I realize why one would dual boot.

In the upgrade process how does one select the ability to dual boot and
also down the line if your Vista does become fully operational can you
delete XP and keep only Vista?"

Thanks

 

[Dale \Mad_Murdock\ White]

As with any new OS, there is going to be problems. People on these forums
took the plunge and upgraded and then found out, they had some problems and
then didn't have a way to go back.

In my work, I have to use a VPN client and PCanywhere. I finally got a
working VPN client, but PCanywhere isn't available for Vista yet.

If I dual boot, I get to fiddle around with Vista and learn it's quirks and
problems and if by some chance I have a really daunting problem, I can
always go back to XP. If nothing else, when I'm testing out games under
vista, I can go back and see how it behaves in XP. Sometimes, both OSes show
the same problem. Here in this forum, some people would scream how Vista
sucks and Microsoft screwed them !

I'm actually triple booting, XP, Vista32 and Vista64. Because I'm hearing
all this flap about 64bit and how it's the future and all that and so I
wanted to see was there in advantage or extra problems. Being able to go
back to Vista32, I can see whether it's a problem with Vista64 or if both
have the problem.

In 6-9 months from now, there won't be much need in dual booting, as Vista
will stabilize, Applications, drivers and hardware will get caught up and
Vista will run on par with XP in a generic sense. Right now, going pure
Vista is just too much of a unknown gamble.

If nothing else, Dual booting lets you find out, if you're going to have any
compatibility problems. You may find out you do, at which time you revert
back to XP and delete your Vista boot. If everything runs fine, you delete
your XP boot and go pure vista.

How does dual booting making your OS complicated ? You get a menu, before
you ever boot your OS, you choose your OS and off you go. There is nothing
complicated about it.

 

[ColTom2]

Hi Dale:

Thanks for your informative input. My biggest question that I have now is
how do I select to dual boot in the Vista upgrade process. What options
should I look for in the upgrade to be sure and implement the ability to
dual boot?

There is no doubt now as to whether I will elect to dual boot, but only
how?

Thanks

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Dual booting does solve some of the many compatibility issues between
software that runs on XP but doesn't currently run on Vista. I have at least
half a dozen applications that simply will not run on Vista and until the
software developer's update the software to run on Vista it is necessary for
me to dual boot.

Dual booting also has another point in its favour. If one operating system
fails, you have another one which you can boot into quickly thus resulting
in less downtime.

Of course dual booting XP and Vista does have its downside. For one if you
boot into XP then you loose all system restore points in Vista. So before
even considering a dual boot scenario with XP and Vista always make sure you
have the option to backup both operating systems just in case of a system
failure and you need to restore Vista.

But then if you do need to use two operating systems and you don't like the
idea of a dual boot scenario, you could always use virtual machine software,
such as Virtual PC 2007 or VMWare workstation.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[Dale \Mad_Murdock\ White]

One thing that has been noted before, if you have the upgrade version of
Vista, you will not be allowed to dual boot, as Vista will disable your XP
boot. Do a search in the newsgroup\forums and you'll see some work around
for that.

If you have the full install version of Vista, all you need is a separate
partition or 2nd hard drive. When you install Vista it will automatically
setup a dual boot menu. One will be Vista, the other will be "earlier
version of windows" why it can't just say Windows XP, is beyond me.

If you have the upgrade version and you don't like the work around, another
option is to buy another hard drive. $50 will get you an 80GB these days.
And you could physically swap out drives. Vista never knows about Xp and
vice versus. You will need to install a base XP on this drive first, since
the upgrade will look for it. If that sounds like too much work, I'd go back
to searching this forum for the Dual boot work around

 

[ColTom2]

Hi John:

Not knowing anything about either dual booting or Virtual PC 2007 it looks
as if Virtual PC 2007 would be much simpler to accomplish, as I assume that
you do not have to do anything to partition HD's. Looks as if you could
download and install Virtual PC 2007 and you would be ready to upgrade to
Vista or am I missing something? If this is the case why would anyone want
to do otherwise?

What are some of the Pro's and Con's of Virtual PC 2007 and also can you
use the work around to use the Vista Premium upgrade version rather than
full version? Can you at some point uninstall either XP or Vista at a later
date?

I would like to be able to upgrade to Vista in the simplest manner while
retaining XP MCE because of the many application problems, as described.

Thanks

 

[John Barnett MVP]

I've noticed your post in the Virtual PC newsgroups and like the poster that
answered your post in that ng i'm a little confused over the 'upgrade'
issue.

You have, i believe, XP MCE already on your PC. If you are 'upgrading' you
are replacing XP MCE with a copy of Vista (the Vista files are being copied
over the original XP MCE files). To dual boot you would need to do a 'clean'
install of Vista and you can only do this from a full retail copy, not an
upgrade copy.

As far as VPC 2007 is concerned you would install VPC 2007 and then
'install' Vista onto the VPC virtual drive. Once again we are talking of
'installing' here, so you need a full retail copy of Vista. You can't simply
use an upgrade version as an installation on VPC unless another operating
system is on VPC in the first place. You also have the added problem with
VPC (and any other virtual machine software) of the guest operating system
sharing memory with the host operating system. Basically, if you can
understand, with virtual software you are running two operating systems
together, so if your system has, say 1GB RAM you would boot to XP (which
must be running for you to access the guest operating system on VPC) and
then launch VPC to run Vista. In this scenario XP would grab 512MB of RAM or
more (depending upon how you set things up initially) and Vista would grab
the remaining 512MB RAM - result both systems running slower than normal
and, frankly, with 512MB RAM Vista would be struggling.

Maybe dual booting would be better for you than VPC 2007?

Regards

John


--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[ColTom2]

Hi John:

Thanks to you and all the others for your most informative data. I think
at this point I am just going to sit back for awhile, but I do agree with
your conclusion about dual booting. There is really no simple solution here.

Thanks,

ColTom

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

One thing that has been noted before, if you have the upgrade version of
Vista, you will not be allowed to dual boot, as Vista will disable your XP
boot.

How does Vista disable the ability to boot XP?

Do a search in the newsgroup\forums and you'll see some work around
for that.

The workaround is detailed here:
http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070201#story1

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

I've noticed your post in the Virtual PC newsgroups and like the poster that
answered your post in that ng i'm a little confused over the 'upgrade'
issue.

You have, i believe, XP MCE already on your PC. If you are 'upgrading' you
are replacing XP MCE with a copy of Vista (the Vista files are being copied
over the original XP MCE files). To dual boot you would need to do a 'clean'
install of Vista and you can only do this from a full retail copy, not an
upgrade copy.

That is not correct.
You can use the procedure here:
http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070201#story1
to install a clean copy of Vista to a second partition,
using the upgrade DVD.

 

[Dale \Mad_Murdock\ White]

How does Vista disable the ability to boot XP?

Probably should have worded that better. With a little work you can
re-enable your XP boot. But by default, and that's the key for most basic
users, is that Vista takes away the option to boot to XP. When you try to
fix this by normal means, you'll break the boot to vista to fix the boot to
XP, fixing the Vista will break the XP.

I'm not expert on it, I've just seen the many post about the problems and
the MVP's response about why it's not an option. Which is why I suggested
searching the forums for a workaround, as I know it's been posted a few
times.

I have the full install versions and so I always get the option to boot
Vista or "Earlier version of Windows"

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Gary this is simply a 'hack' While the scenario is workable, after all, the
same applied with XP et-al one does have to consider the licence agreement.
Following the instructions and using XP as the licence code number would
effectively remove the XP licence from that copy of XP, thus making that
copy of XP obsolete - it couldn't be used on another machine. Looking at the
scenario of upgrading to vista and then using that upgrade to clean install
would invalidate the end user licence agreement. While it is permissable to
install another copy on the same machine, this can only be done if you are
having problems with the first copy and cannot access it. It is also
essential to remove the first copy as soon as the second install is working
as it should be. The author himself even asks 'It's reasonable for us to ask
ourselves whether buying an upgrade version of Vista, and then installing it
to an empty hard disk that contains no previous version of Windows, is
ethical.' He (the author) believes it is, Microsoft, on the other hand would
probably beg to disagree.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..