Seekiong Vista Experiences onan XP workstation

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hank Arnold
  • Start date Start date
H

Hank Arnold

I am currently running XP on my PC and just got the Vista Beta 2 DVD. I
want to install it on a second hard drive while keeping the current XP
installation unaffected.

I'm looking for anyone's experience with this and any tips or "gotchas"
to be aware of. Ultimately, I'll probably remove it and get a new PC
before I upgrade to Vista for real....
 
Argh!!!! Sorry for the spelling in the subject... I use a spell
checker....Jeez, it looks funky............... :-(

Regards,
Hank Arnold
 
I would avoid a "Dual-Boot" scenario. If your case panels are
easily accessible - unplug your XP drive's power plug and use
only the secondary drive while previewing Vista.

Vista isn't a "Day-to-Day" use OS just yet. Prior to installing
download Avast AV free for protecting Vista. If your machine
doesn't have 512+ Megabytes of RAM, I'd forgo installing. It
(Vista) will use 550-600 Megabytes of memory. Beta-2 is like
traveling with everything you own (Kitchen Sink = Debug code).
Drivers are probably it's biggest issue at the moment, so after
setup you may have peripherals that will not work. If your PC
has the .Net framework you can download/run the Vista advisor
tool to analyze your XP setup for Vista use.

It's an interesting exercise and there is plenty of new features &
tools to experiment with. Keep in mind that things are located
differently or done in a new way and it takes time to get familiar
with it.
 
Hank said:
I am currently running XP on my PC and just got the Vista Beta 2 DVD. I
want to install it on a second hard drive while keeping the current XP
installation unaffected.

I'm looking for anyone's experience with this and any tips or "gotchas"
to be aware of. Ultimately, I'll probably remove it and get a new PC
before I upgrade to Vista for real....
Click to expand...


Yes, you can dual-boot Vista with earlier versions of Windows, as
long as you've a separate partition on which to install it.

The Vista installation will "set aside" WinXP's system files
(Boot.ini, NTLDR, and NTDetect.com) in favor of its own, completely
different boot manager. This new boot manager requires the use of
BCDEdit, and is far from user friendly.

Boot Configuration Data in Windows Vista
download.microsoft.com/download/a/f/7/af7777e5-7dcd-4800-8a0a-b18336565f5b/BCD.doc

I strongly recommend that you download and install VistaBootPRO
from http://www.pro-networks.org. This utility can be installed to both
the Vista and WinXP operating systems, and provides a convenient means
of editing the boot process, as well as simplifying the removal of the
Vista boot process, should you tire of dual-booting.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



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