Possible to dual install 32bit xp and 64bit vista?

[Opterpwn]

I'm about to put to my rig together that will include an e6850 processor, 8800 gtx vidcard, 4GB of PC2-8500 ram, a 680i sli mobo, and a couple raptor drives among other things. I plan on doing alot of gaming and some content creation and media encoding as well. I've heard on many occassions that both 64 and 32 bit versions of vista have noticably slowed down fps on most games, and tha the 64 bit version in particular has many hardware driver issues. I have no doubt that in time vista will get its kinks worked out but in the meantime im considering dual booting 32 bit Windows XP Pro with 64 bit Windows Vista and I'm wondering if thats possible to do? Also, does dual booting seem to slow down the operating system that you're currently using at all? Also would it be in my best interest to buy the 32 bit or the 64 bit version of vista now or is it likely that the next version of windows will be released by the time most other companies release 64 bit software? Finally how do I go about dual booting 2 operating systems because I've never done it before. Does it matter which one i install first? Can I dual boot on one harddrive or do I need 2?

 

[mechBgon]

My preference is to keep the two OSes on independent HDDs:

1) connect one hard drive, install first OS on it, then disconnect it.

2) connect other hard drive, install second OS on that one, then reconnect the first HDD.

3) use the motherboard's own boot-device selection menu to choose which OS to boot from.

This leaves you free to bail either OS without problems. Dual-booting doesn't slow down the OS you're using, nope. Run the Vista Upgrade Advisor to see if your existing software and peripherals will have known issues with Vista.

 

[Opterpwn]

Ok thx alot, I was thinking of going along that route. I can still install them on seperate harddrives if their in a Raid 0 array right?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Opterpwn
Ok thx alot, I was thinking of going along that route. I can still install them on seperate harddrives if their in a Raid 0 array right?

Negative. The array will appear to be one hard drive as far as Windows is concerned; you'd need two arrays, or just skip RAID0.

 

[postmortemIA]

If you set them up on on RAID0, there's only one HD form Windows perspective. As long as you install XP first, and Vista after; you won't have EVER problem with bootloader, both can be restored from Windows CD.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
As long as you install XP first, and Vista after; you won't have EVER problem with bootloader,

True.

It's really simple to have both, as long as XP is installed first, so Vista automatically configures the bootloader, and they are in separate partitions / HDDs.