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Windows Vista Already On Laptop, Want XP Pro Dual Boot

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DreamerSpawn

Senior member
I am considering purchasing a laptop. Most laptops come with Vista on it, and I am interested in making the laptop dual boot with Windows XP Pro. I've been reading for quite some time and only came across a post or two saying they've had difficulties but no one mentioning any specific difficulties. I realize there may be driver problems, I'm ready to face that. I just need to know if it's going to let me boot up with Windows Vista being the primary operating system and Windows XP Pro being the secondary?

I realized this question is in the noob category, but the answer to this question still seems to be vague. I am about to purchase a laptop and I want to be sure that I can still have my good old faithful Windows XP on it, as well is getting used to the new vista.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
This is the easiest way:

Create a partition for each OS. Vista and XP shouldn't be on the same partition.

Then, install XP on the second partition. Once it's up and running, install Vista, ensuring that you're not upgrading or changing the XP install. Vista will handle the bootloader, etc.

You can do it other ways but it can get more complicated and irksome. Ideally, you have the time and discs handy to do it the old fashioned way from scratch.
 
Not sure if Vista will handle the bootloader that smoothly though - in theory you should always install from oldest OS to newest (where MS is concerned anyway).

2 other ways =
Clone the drive you get onto DVD - Format and install XP, make 2 partitions either before or after - just make sure XP on partition1 for sakes of arguments.
Reinstall Vista onto other partition as Nerp suggests.
Vista will then handle the bootloader, with a bit of luck.

The other way is for you to get a 3rd party boot loader, maybe Grub or Lilo or another - do some research,
get your Vista system
Partition into 2.
- load up the boot loader,
Install XP throught the boot loader
Hey presto
 
It's easy to make a Parallel installation

Vista and XP is mutually compatible on the same partition

just during installation select ADVANCED, then select a NEW directory, during installation, so you wont over write your Vista stuff
 
the only way you get the ADVANCED options to show up is if you run the Win install from another Windows OS
 
Thank you all for your input.

What about problems I've heard of? Is there anyone who's actually DONE this? No offense, but I can't take a 'chance' that my laptop won't boot up (has vista on it) once I 'attempt' installation of XP Pro as the secondary boot. If I could get someone's opinion that's actually pulled this off, I would extremely appreciate it.
 
you are speaking to him (me)

during the Dual Boot, you get to choose which OS you want to boot.
the boot.ini gets created and updated automatically as soon as you install WinXP in the XP install screen, when it starts to copy files to the HDD

just make sure to NEVER DO NOT FORMAT the hard drive, in one of those XP install screens, then you'll be fine.

as mentioned above make sure you run it from windows, and select ADVANCED, so you can specify the Alternate Directory name for C:\WinXP, instead of c:\windows
 
Thank you so much AllGamer. I really appreciate yer advice and everyone elses too! You guys here at Anandtech have always helped me, just wanted to say thank you.

I'll give it a shot. I'll make sure to set a different windows directory. If I set it to maybe c:\WindowsXP instead of c:\windows, that should work? I'm just a bit confused because when I ran dual boot with 98se & XP (years back), XP was able to make another partition and install to that. I LOVED that feature! I can't have it do the same here? Probably not since it's going from newer OS to older OS, ey?
 
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