Dual Boot on R2

Hi guys,

I've recently bought the M17x and I figured out that I can't really work with audio on a Windows 7 right now so I decided to install a XP partition.

I wasn't aware of the main problems of doing this (installing a XP after Windows 7), but the thing is:

Is there some aspect of M17x R2 that would prevent me to do this? Would I lose some of its functionality if I finally manage to install the XP partition? Any specific tips?

Thank you very much.

 

Best way to do it would be to use a second hard drive. At least on R1, you can choose boot device priority.

 

Yes you would need a second HDD to effectively do it. Windows doesn't like downgrading.

 

Thanks guys.

Any hard drive suggestions to do this job really well? Or basically anything goes?

 

Just another HDD will do to install a second OS.

 

The problem with installing XP is the drivers, dell does not supply XP drivers for the M17x R2, so the problem would be finding drivers.

On the R1 they managed to get XP working, but with a few small deviced disabled, this is because the R1 had and nVidia nforce chip set on the mother board and you could download the chip set drivers from nvidia.

But on the R2 you would need to find drivers for the intel PM55 chips set from intel, I have not tryed to hard yet but could not find any thing with a quick search.

Then you need drivers for the sound card, and grafix cards.

So the main problem would be the lack of drivers, so far I have not read of any one that got XP running on a R2. (Like the one you have).

Good Luck and do let us know if you get it working, alot of us here would like to have XP running on out M17x for various reasons.

 

Well, I can clearly see that I'm in serious trouble.

If only Windows XP Mode was at least Fireware compatible...

Maybe installing a 32-bit version of Windows 7 could help me a bit, but even this will not be really quick.

It's a shame, the R2 is such a fantastic system but I wasn't aware that it would be unflexible.

 

It's not inflexible, it's purpose-built. You can still do the Windows 7 32 idea and use a second HDD...that should work for you. Keep in mind that XP is 10 years old, so to best use it you need older tech too...Pentium Dual Core or Core 2 Duo, which were built when XP was still used. Chipset drivers, etc are still available for that OS.

 

Hi Zakka

An Idea, you could use a virtual machine and install windows XP in there, they have become muxh better than in the past.

One option is to look for a program called Virtual Box (By Oracel, use to be sunmicrosystems), its free for home use, else for work you could look for Virtual Box OSE, its the opensource edition.

Its verry easy to use, and you can assign how many cores to give each virtual machine and the amount of ram.

This might work since a virtual machine emulates a different Motherbord, graphix card, and processor.

Shared folderes can be setup so you can transfer files from win& to Virtual XP.

Well just an Idea if you need XP for a certain program.

 

I know it's not what you are looking for, but it's nice to mention

I use the Virtual PC from Microsoft (free) . . Just enable virtual hardware in bios and you are ready to go

 

Virtual PC is Good, I don't know what the new version is like. But is previous versions I've used you could only use one core per Virtual PC, where as Virtual Box allows you to use more per Virtual PC, please correct me if I am wrong regarding Virtual PC from Microsoft.

And I'm not sure if it is also free for business purposes.

 

Any of the Virtual programs would do well to run XP, I've used all three. I do prefer VMware though but it's not free so Next is VirtualBox and then Virtual PC. Virtual PC isn't supported as much by MS even though they included a semi-handicapped version of it for Windows 7 XP emulation mode. Was quite funny to see actually.

Anyhow, I always have a virtual XP SP3 OS running on my system for work and keep it updated regularly as well. I have not have any problems yet, which is great.

BUT, IF you're looking to do 3D stuff virtual is not for you. VMware has very limited 3D support but don't bet on running any current 3D games on it, and why would you?