Dual XP Pros?

[larry123]

Greetings all,

I'm a web developer and I'm setting up a new PC. I'd like to have two
instances of XP Pro loaded (on different partitions of course), one for
"production", and one for a "test environment," where I can experiment with
different things, without fear of F'ing things up.

I've had two different O/Ss on one PC before, but am not the same O/S twice.
Would doing all this cause problems for the activation and licensing
process? Any other complications you can forsee?

Thanks in advance for your expertise

Larry123

 

[RJK]

I don't see why you'd want to do that. Dreamweaver, for example, is
billiant at simulating how your site will look and work in IE6 while you're
working on it - with one press of F12 ....up it pops in the browser !
Pages you're working on are instantly saved before it's thrown into IE6's
browser window

regards, Richard

 

[Tom Shelton]

Greetings all,

I'm a web developer and I'm setting up a new PC. I'd like to have two
instances of XP Pro loaded (on different partitions of course), one for
"production", and one for a "test environment," where I can experiment with
different things, without fear of F'ing things up.

I've had two different O/Ss on one PC before, but am not the same O/S twice.
Would doing all this cause problems for the activation and licensing
process? Any other complications you can forsee?

Thanks in advance for your expertise

Larry123

Have you considered using something like Virtual PC or VM ware? Another
cool solution are drive drawers...

 

[larry123]

Richard, the utility in having 2 environments is not for the web previews,
but for the ability to be able to change program options, install and remove
new programs, and test out various scenarios without messing up the stable
enviroment that I need to rely upon every day.

From 20+ years of experience with PCs, going back to the IBM PC Jr., I know
that many application programs don't work well together, and the uninstall
programs do a half-assed job of it. I'm wanting to avoid a repeat of as many
of the problems I've had in the past as possible.

Thanks, Larry

 

[Grant]

I don't see why you'd want to do that. Dreamweaver, for example, is
billiant at simulating how your site will look and work in IE6 while you're
working on it - with one press of F12 ....up it pops in the browser !
Pages you're working on are instantly saved before it's thrown into IE6's
browser window

regards, Richard

But it would be useful for playing with different server technologies without
risking messing up your production environment.

 

[larry123]

Tom,

Yes, virtual PC looks good, but I just thought a dual boot would be simpler
(and less expensive).

 

[Bob Milton]

Larry,
I haven't tried it with XP, but NT/2000 would install in two partitions
just fine. Only thing to look out for is that the dual boot option at the
start tends to have two seemingly identical choices. So you may need to edit
boot.ini to give them names that you can easily tell apart.
Bob

 

[CS]

Greetings all,

I'm a web developer and I'm setting up a new PC. I'd like to have two
instances of XP Pro loaded (on different partitions of course), one for
"production", and one for a "test environment," where I can experiment with
different things, without fear of F'ing things up.

I've had two different O/Ss on one PC before, but am not the same O/S twice.
Would doing all this cause problems for the activation and licensing
process? Any other complications you can forsee?

Thanks in advance for your expertise

Larry123

No one has really answered your question.

There have been similar questions posted here along the same lines -
the answer from Microsoft (their rep who posts in this group) is that
you would need two licenses. Of course that's to their advantage.

You could put two copies of Pro on the same machine without activating
it twice. It's been done by others. As for the license(s), unless
you wish to make MS more wealthy than they already are, I wouldn't
worry about it. Go ahead and do it.

 

[RJK]

I understand. ....but, I still think you're making yourself a lot of work.
As you'll already know, there's a lot of work checking how a site appears in
browsers on different platforms, in different screen modes, in various past
versions of browsers etc. without trying to replicate the mess in millions
of other peoples PC's

A poorly maintained and cluttered machine, with an unhappy software mix,
into whose web browser your site won't properly load would be that machine
owners fault - not yours.

regards, Richard

 

[larry123]

Thanks CS, that is my plan.

MS has many problems, and "oppression" is one of them, but even I don't
think they would press the issue and require two licenses.

Happy Holidays.