Dual Booting Questions...seeking answers

I am dual booting with MS Windows Vista and XP, both on different partitions, and I was wondering if anybody here have any experience with installing programs so that they can be used in both operating systems.

What I have right now is some programs that work fine, some that work OK for a little while, and others that won't even start. For example, FireFox---which I installed while using XP---works just fine if I open it in Vista using the executable in the XP partition. Steam, on the other hand, will work for awhile in Vista before Valve's automatic user identification system detects that I'm not the same user due to the different OS and kick me off. Visual Studio 2005 will not work at all, probably because it uses the libraries built into XP.

So, for people who have done this before, how do you install such programs so that you can use them in both operating systems? I can, of course install separate instances of the programs, but I would run out of room pretty darn quick if I did so. Thanks ahead of time, and I will try to share whatever knowledge I have on this as well eventually.

 

I believe you just need to work on the file premissions in xp and then vista will be able to run everything. Im not quite sure how to establish, but this is my trail of thought on it.

 

Yep me too...just need some pointers however as I never gave permissions or privileges much thought on XP with me being the administrator and only user.

 

Using an application between two OSs is not that simple. Because most complex and large programs use various registry entries and files copied outside the program’s allotted directory (Program Files directory); for example when a program is installed it may copy some of it's files to system directory of Windows or special folders like ProgramFiles/Common files, Documemnts and settings etc..

And programs such as development environments (Visual Studio etc.) which are tightly bound to the OS, requires the OS to be updated (runtime) in order to work properly. Therefore those type of applications will not work at all without installing.

However this trick may work for most applications : Install every program twice, once under XP and again under Vista giving the same destination, by doing so you make all the registry updates and other necessary settings/file updates required for the program to run while saving hard disk space. Programs that depend less on Windows registry will work better than others under this condition. If a program uses registry for keeping its session/user information then it may not preserve those settings across OSs, but luckily most applications rely on their own files

I have tried this and it works for 90% of the time.

 

Interesting Phoenix, thanks! I'll try it with VS8 and see if it works...really any IDE's are suspect but we'll see!

 

Yeah, what PhoenixFx said should usually work. The only problem is then keeping everything in sync. (You have one set of program files, but two sets of registry entries. A software update may change the files, but only one set of registry entries. And then the app may no longer be able to run under the other OS.

Still, it's your best bet.
Praise Microsoft for giving us the registry and all the limitations and restrictions it brings...

 

That's a good point, I guess I'll have to be careful with this approach.