XP installed, can I add Vista as a dual boot?

[Guest]

I currently have XP Pro SP2 installed on a single partition. What I would
like to do is install Vista Business on a separate partition on that drive
or, if necessary, onto a separate drive. Either way I want to be able to dual
boot XP or Vista. I've seen some info on the web suggesting this is possible
and that the Vista boot loader is even smart enough to to assign C: to which
ever one is booted.

So, can add Vista to an XP PC and be able to dual boot either?

 

[dirty old man]

Yes


|I currently have XP Pro SP2 installed on a single partition. What I would
| like to do is install Vista Business on a separate partition on that drive
| or, if necessary, onto a separate drive. Either way I want to be able to dual
| boot XP or Vista. I've seen some info on the web suggesting this is possible
| and that the Vista boot loader is even smart enough to to assign C: to which
| ever one is booted.
|
| So, can add Vista to an XP PC and be able to dual boot either?

 

[Stan Kay]

Yes it can be done for that is exactly what I have done already.

The key is to FIRST set up either the extra hard drive or the partition that
you require before you begin the process. In my case I created two
partition on my system drive (which I named as C and D). Windows XP was on
the C drive and the D drive was blank. I then booted into XP and loaded the
Vista CD and progreesed to the point where I was asked whether I wanted to
upgrade (meaning upgrade my XP installation to Vista) or install new. I
chose install new and was then asked where I wished to install Vista. I the
pointed to the D drive and allowed the process to follow it's natural
course. About 50 minutes later, on boot up, I was presented with a choice
of "Earlier Windows Operating System" or "Vista" and everything worked
fine. Well.............Vista booted fine but driver conflicts mean that it
does not operate as quickly and smoothly as it should. However, that is a
driver issue and not a dual boot problem.

Best of luck.

 

[John Barnes]

You can do it but be advised that you are compromising your Vista system
each time you boot into XP. You lose all your restore points. There are
other items that help you recover from mistakes that will also be lost.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I second John's caveat. I can see dual booting with a computer that is only
going to be used for gaming, surfing the web, and email, but the fact that
you are purchasing the Business edition tells me the security of your files,
backups, and recovery options are high priorities.

 

[Guest]

Actually the Business edition is what I'm being given. But since the this is
my only computer I am concerned about my files and such so I do my backups
regularly. That's why I wanted to do a dual boot- so I can grow into Vista
without having to do it an all or nothing upgrade. As time passes my use of
XP would eventually just die off.

I'm disappointed to hear that Vista doesn't handle a dual boot better than
what John indicates. Loosing restore points and other "safety" items. What
was MS thinking?

That said, and I'm not arguing, but I don't understand how booting the XP
drive/partition would affect things like restore points, presumably stored on
the Vista disk/partition. I'd appreciate more about how that happens.

 

[Thor]

BitLocker Drive Encyption for the Vista drive/partition will solve the
problem of restore points.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

You are assuming that the problem is with Vista. It isn't. The problem is
that the XP VSS driver is not compatible with Vista. Vista VSS is backwards
compatible with XP, however. The problem is on the XP side and that is
where the fix would have to be. Search this ng on "volsnap.sys" to get an
overview of the actual issues and why MS made a decision not to fix XP.

The problem only happens when you mix XP and Vista on the same computer.
Otherwise neither has a problem.

One solution is to run XP in a virtual machine on the Vista desktop by using
Virtual PC 2007. There is no conflict that way.

 

[John Barnes]

BitLocker is not available for the Business edition
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/editions/default.mspx

 

[John Barnes]

In addition to Colin's suggestion, you can use a 3rd party boot program such
as BootitNG and hide the Vista volume from XP, but you can leave XP visible
from Vista. Partition Commander is another. Good discussion by Rick Rogers
in the next post up.

 

[Jerry]

Colin, thanks for the info and pointers to other info. I can
see now the problem.

I still submit that Vista is the real cause. Without knowing
all the details, it seems that MS could have implemented
Vista in such a way that XP would not erroneously damage
Vista files. For whatever reason they chose not to do so
and, I suspect, to "fix" it now would be just as big an
effort as fixing XP. So we live with what we are given.

The virtual XP suggestion is a good one that might make
sense eventually. But right now I've got a working XP
installation with the usual assortment of home programs-
Office, Nero, Acronis True Image backup, hobby programs,
mapping programs, a couple of games, etc.

I've run the Vista upgrade advisor. It doesn't have info for
VMWare, the integrated sound, video capture card, True Image
or my HP printer. Several programs must be uninstalled first
and either won't install on Vista or may have compatability
issues.

So just upgrading XP to Vista won't be painless. Some
programs will have to upgraded, if possible, or replaced at
extra cost. Drivers will have to be tracked down, if
available. How much time will I spend getting everything
working again?

That's why I wanted a dual boot option- Migrate my work and
fun to Vista as time, software/driver availability and
finances allow.

A third party boot manager appears the only way to go (an
extra cost). Maybe a separate disk instead of a partition
(another cost) would make things cleaner.

 

[John Barnes]

If you have SATA drives and like my MOBO you can connect one or two sockets
to the back-plate, you could install Vista on a drive connected there, and
unplug it when you are booting into XP. Some even have a direct SATA
connection on the back.

 

[Jerry]

If you have SATA drives and like my MOBO you can connect one or two
sockets to the back-plate, you could install Vista on a drive connected
there, and unplug it when you are booting into XP. Some even have a
direct SATA connection on the back.

No external drive connectors. Not sure if a remote a SATA
connector there. Not the most convenient option either.

I do have an USB external IDE drive that might be a
possibility. Drive on and boots Vista, drive off and it
boots XP. Hmmmmm

 

[John Barnes]

You aren't going to be able to boot a USB drive as far as I know.
A SATA card on the PCI buss should work if it has the proper drivers, but I
wouldn't count on that for a while

 

[Jerry]

Are you sure about that? Booting from USB is one of the BIOS
options. If it's not likely to work I'm back to a separate
partition on the internal SATA drive with a boot manager.
Although maybe that's a better (and certainly less round
about) option anyway.

Would a separate SATA drive make more sense for the long
term? That way Vista is on the primary partition on it's own
drive. I can then remove or reformat the XP drive as I see fit.

 

[Bert Kinney]

This should explain it Jerry.

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

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

The incompatibility is in one sense by design. It was necessary in order to
extend the functionality of VSS in Vista. The problem is that backporting
the new functionality to XP means an extensive rewrite to XP. Dual booting
is rare and mostly confined to technology enthusiasts. Only a tiny fraction
of 1% of the Windows installed user base does it.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

John is correct. You cannot boot Windows from a usb bus. A pci bus is
required. There are SATA and eSATA cards for laptops using the
ExpressCard34 slots that new laptops have that should work the same way as
an external SATA connector does on desktops.

The reason MS seems to be dragging their feet on usb booting is that
international standards are still preliminary. MS probably does not want to
support a preliminary standard on an item like this because of the risk that
the final standards would cause problems for users who relied on the
prelims.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Great article, Bert. I have one question. In your fourth bullet on
Workarounds you say,
"File backups are not affected because these backups do not rely on restore
points."

Should that be "do not rely on snapshots."? Restore points are created by
System Restore by calling on volsnap.sys to create the snapshots, but are
you sure that SR is used to create file backups? Just wondering. I assumed
that volsnap.sys and not SR was called in making file backups.

 

[Jerry]

Well I went ahead and installed BootIt NG. Used it to partition my drive
and made sure that XP still booted fine. Since I have received my real
Vista Business yet I installed the preview Ultimate version I got at the
launch event this week. After installation and re-enabling BING I now
can boot XP (still on c with the Vista partition hidden and boot Vista
(also on c and access the XP partition. Pretty cool.

Now I have to start tracking down missing drivers and such. And I may
have to do it all again once I get the real Business edition.