M860TU/NP8660 Dual-booting/WinXP drivers

Hey guys,

I've got an NP8660 coming in a few days, and I've been doing some research about compatibility issues that my games may have with Vista. I've been reading up on what I could find about dual-booting, and I'm trying to decide between Vista Ultimate + XP Home or even Ultimate 64 + Ultimate 32, if that is even possible.

I'm going to keep Ultimate 64-bit no matter what... the issue for me is, do I get XP Home or Ultimate 32-bit for the second boot? How would I go about getting VU32 as a second OS? If I can't do that, then my second main question is:

I bought my Sager NP8660 from PowerNotebooks with Vista Ultimate 64-bit (comes with 32+64 discs and drivers), and if I do decide to do an XP Home dual-boot, how many of the drivers that come with the system discs are XP-compatible? I only have a Dialup connection here at home, so the thought of having to download a complete set of drivers just for XP is very disheartening...

Thanks for any and all help that can be offered.

 

Everything is xp compatible and I would suggest to get xp pro instead of xp home.

 

Why do you need XP in the first place? I would suggest you to get Vista/Linux, or Vista/Mac OS

 

Thanks for the response, youdontneedtoknow. Basically, I will use Ultimate 64 as my primary OS, and have a second OS to use for my older games that won't work on Vista 64. My current notebook used to have XP Home before I loaded a full XP Pro on it, and I do like XP Pro, but I really don't think I'll be using an XP boot for anything but offline gaming, so I won't need the extras that Pro offers (that kind of stuff will be on Vista Ultimate, so I can save a little money that way).

As far as your suggestions of Linux or MacOS, I have used both, and while I like both of them, most of my stuff is PC/Windows ("Wintel", I have often heard), and having either of them will really be counter-productive to why I'm getting a secondary OS in the first place (play my older Windows games offline).

 

ok you can get all your drivers from sagernotebook.com and look for support links. http://www.sagernotebook.com/information.php?information_id=6

 

I had planned on Vista Ultimate 64 and XP pro... however I can't find my XP install disc... lol.

I believe your machine should ship with a CD containing Vista and XP drivers anyway, that should cover everything.

 

youdontneedtoknow: Yeah, I've already bookmarked the Sager drivers page That was why I was asking about the XP drivers, and whether the drivers CD already came with XP drivers, so I wouldn't have to download them all again.

Turbo7MN: If your guess is correct, that will save me a LOT of headache! I had heard that if you did not order an OS with a Sager machine, you would get drivers for both; here's hoping you still get them even if you get Vista! I guess I'll just have to wait and see what's in the box when it arrives... :twitcy:

Thanks for the responses, guys!

 

You welcome hope you have fun installing

 

Oh, believe me, I will! I'm a total geek. Even when I was installing a "new" Win98 on an older PC here at home, I was having so much fun doing it... it almost felt like Christmas. :GEEK: :laugh:

 

Cool, do you think if I should install vista on my new laptop? I heard vista is very slow and like you said doesn't support a lot old games.

 

youdontneedtoknow:

Honestly, I have never used Vista, so I don't know how to answer your question, sorry. However, I have been using XP (Home and Pro) for years, so if Vista is ridiculously difficult to get used to, I'll know it pretty quickly.

That said, I have watched experienced PC users use it, and several of them seem to like it, even though there will always be those who refuse to "modernize" and say Vista's junk automatically.

Tell you what. Post your notebook specs and I'll make a note of them. If you can hold off a week or so on Vista, I should have plenty of time to get my Sager and play around with it a bit; I'll compare my NP8660 to your laptop and let you know a reasonable guess as to whether you should upgrade or not. Sound good?

 

There is no reason to get XP pro over home unless you need to hook up to a domain or you have a very specific need that only XP Pro can address--and if you are asking the question xp home or pro, you don't have that need.

Vista is fine for a modern machine--heck, it runs well on my 5-year old 5680 with an ati 9600 mobility gpu and a p4 2.4 ghtz processor.

I do get the vista 64 thing though--that could cause problems with some things.

Since you are getting it with Vista pre-installed, it takes a little more work to dual boot. Do some research first before blindly installing xp atop of vista...save yourself the headache.

It can be done, just requires extra effort (vista over XP, though is simple)

 

gerryf19: Yes, I know what you mean about headaches and such... And yes, I have done some research and determined that: (1) I do not need XP Pro; I'm going to get XP Home, and (2) I can do a dual-boot (I've looked up some guides from the forums; doesn't look too hard) with XP. Thanks for the reminders/clarification!