Installing vista on 2000 computer

[Guest]

I've triend installing vista on an 2000 machine (Not upgrade).
The installation informed me that it'll move the Win2000 files to Windows.old

When setup finished, the Windows entry on the Boot.ini remained and i could
boot into 2000 along side with vista.

It only transffered the "Program Files" folder into windows.old - meaning,
the 2000 system will boot (Because it's WINNT and not Windows) but will have
no programs installed.

Is this the default behavior? if so, what is it good for ?

 

[Jimmy Brush]

Hello,

Dual-booting 2 operating systems from the same partition is not supported.

The reason your Program Files directory was moved to Windows.old was because
Windows Vista needed to create that directory itself and didn't want to
delete the one that was already there.

This is in case you have data that you need to copy over to the new
installation.

- JB

 

[Guest]

But why does vista keep the WINNT Folder and let me Boot to a Half-working
win2000 - surely this is not necesary and even annoying...

 

[Jimmy Brush]

You're right, I don't think Vista should allow the option of booting into
the other operating system if it installed over it.

The only things I can think of is that Microsoft hasn't gotten around to
changing that behavior, or they keep that in there to assist in manual
uninstallation.

- JB

 

[Jimmy Brush]

Vista doesn't delete anything when it installs.

If it tries to create a directory and there is a directory with the same
name already there, it moves that directory to windows.old. It is a very
gentle, non-destructive installer.

Since the Vista installer doesn't create a directory called WINNT, it
doesn't touch the one that is there.

- JB

 

[Guest]

Hope they change this soon.

thanks for your reply