Dual Boot XP and Vista

What steps should I take in setting up my notebook to dual boot XP and Vista? I want to try out the new Vista Pre-Release but want to keep my copy of XP going in case I run into problems.

Thank you.

 

I have a tri boot of Vista, Xp and Ubuntu. I used partition magic to create separtate partitions for each. Make sure you have a full version of windows or restore disks in case anything goes wrong. Create a disk containing needed drivers. Install Vista in the new created blank partition and have fun. Don't use the pre release the RC1 is now available. See link on main page.

 

What link? What is wrong with RC1?

Thank you.

Edit, oh you mean I should use RC 1. Nevermind.

 

Hold the phone on RC1, I cannot connect to the internet on my test box AMD 64 3000+ I gig ram and 200 gig hard drive. This ran Beta 2 and pre-RC1 5536 build without problems. I can ping my network and am typing this message on another system. WTF

 

I also have a triple boot with XP/Vista RC1/SUSE 10.1. But here is how I installed Vista back when I had Beta 2.

1) Use the GParted Live CD from here. Boot from that CD and partition your hard drive as you see fit. You'll need to reduce the size of the XP Partition before you add the Vista Partition. It is your option whether you want to go ahead and format the partition to NTFS (it's not neccesary).

2) Restart the computer and boot into XP as normal. XP will run the CHKDSK program to check the hard drive for errors since it's changed. Let that run through.

3) Once you get into XP, pop in the Vista RC1 DVD and when the setup dialog comes up, click 'Install Now'. Don't worry about overwriting XP, it should give you the option to pick the partition you want to install on. Installing from XP lets Vista install its own BootLoader, which won't happen if you boot from the DVD. This keeps you from having to edit XP's BOOT.ini file.

4) That's it. Just let it sit back and install. It will restart several times, but when it's done, you should have both XP and Vista installed and Vista's bootloader will show you the options at boot of 'Microsoft Windows' (Vista) or 'Earlier version of Windows' (XP).

5) A good idea is to install the program VistaBootPRO. It's not neccessary, but it will allow you to change the default OS (Vista is default after the install). It will also allow you to change the values to 'Windows Vista' and 'Windows XP' respectively. You can get that here.

This should be all you need. I'm going to assume it still works the same way with RC1. I'm using RC1 right now, but I upgraded from Beta 2 (which btw takes forever). You might want to do a Google search to make sure that nothing has changed for installation process, but I don't think it has yet. Also, if you didn't download Beta 2 back in June, you won't be able to get RC1 for a few more weeks, so don't use the download link found on this site. Just wait for it and keep checking microsoft.com.

 

Does Vista use the same drivers that XP does -- i.e. can I use my drivers that came with my Dell for the onboard soundcard etc?

After having Vista installed and happy, if I choose to remove XP, will it freak out the system? Is there anything special that needs to be done once fully converted to Vista?

Thank you.

 

1) Some Dell XP drivers work in Vista, some don't. The Synaptics touchpad drivers do, for instance, but my video drivers didn't. Luckily, with RC1, everything seems to be compatible out of the box.

2) It SHOULDN'T freak out if you remove XP, but nothing is certain, especially not things like this. Now if you remove Vista and keep XP, then you'll have to do some running around since Vista implants its bootloader as the system default. This is another good reason to download VistaBootPRO. It will allow you to disable Vista's bootloader and restore XP's should you decide to get rid of Vista. Then just reboot from the GParted LiveCD and fix your partitions. Also, Microsoft says that it MAY not be possible to upgrade from RC1 to the final version of Vista, which expires in June 2007. Therefore, you may have to do a reformat if you want to put a retail version of Vista on your computer anyway. This may change, but it may not. There's no telling with Microsoft.