Dual booting Vista/Xp

[SimpleSi]

I've just taken delivery of my first Vista Business Laptops and when the Vista preparation rountine finishes (hopefilly sometime today ) I was going to "downgrade" it to XP and then start installing apps and then do my normal cloning.

However, would it be worthwhile/easy to dual-boot it?

Has anyone bothered doing this and what progs did you use?

regards

Simon

(Got time today/tomorrow as sitting in a school suite while the HMI inspector is going around - hopefully it'll get out of special measures )

[Geoff]

You should check if you can get XP drivers for all the components before you attempt either option.

[SimpleSi]

Should be OK - MR Fujitsu supplies a "downgrade" disc and fully supports its use (or so they said when I told them I didn't want Vista )

regards

Simon

[Geoff]

I Googled the following Tutorial:

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

There are many more.

[contink]

Just a thought from a different angle.

Might be worth thinking about the confusion potential here with these.. ie:

• staff:
  • ignoring the dual boot (and getting vista)
  • panicking at the dual boot screen
  • picking at random each time
  • getting vista, liking it, and deciding to use it then driving you crazy with demands for software that doesn't work with vista (and why not!) :P
  • ... just being staff...
• kids:
  • booting into the wrong OS during a lesson deliberately
  • finding new and interesting ways to screw with your network using vista
  • ... just being... well ya know :P

Just a thought

[SimpleSi]

This is for non-domain joined machines in a primary - one day something will come out for Vista only - someone will use it a home - and then they will want to do it at school

o ignoring the dual boot (and getting vista)
o panicking at the dual boot screen

Well- I'd want it to autoboot to XP in 2-3 secs

o picking at random each time

Yes - that could be a problem

o booting into the wrong OS during a lesson deliberately

My kids are nice people - they think changing a background is the height of hacking

regards

Simon

[contink]

My kids are nice people - they think changing a background is the height of hacking

Heh heh... This is true... I get this and cursor swapping too... Tough times ahead

[timbo343]

Ive done this at home. Very easy to do. Just partition your hard drive to 2 drives, stick vista on one, and xp on another. Bobs your uncle, but it boots into vista by default. You should be able to down grade, as i understand with each vista license you are able to down grade.

[Michael]

As already mentioned, simply partition in two, but remember the older OS (in this case XP) should be installed first and then Vista.

To make XP the default OS, editing the boot.ini file within System > Advanced tab > Settings (under Startup and Recovery) should do the trick. I am presuming this is the same procedure in Vista?

You can also set the timeout to 5 seconds (or whatever) as the default 30 seconds is far too long.

[Heebeejeebee]

As already mentioned, simply partition in two, but remember the older OS (in this case XP) should be installed first and then Vista.

To make XP the default OS, editing the boot.ini file within System > Advanced tab > Settings (under Startup and Recovery) should do the trick. I am presuming this is the same procedure in Vista?

...errrr not quite. You need to use bcdedit to edit the boot options and it has to be done at the command prompt. It's easy(ish) once you read about the options (bcdedit /?) but it's different to what you're used to.

HBJB

[PiqueABoo]

I started with a clean disk and briefly:

1) Installed Vista to a first partition, noting the disk signature.
2) Hid Vista partition with Ranish and installed XP to a second partition
3) Installed GAG boot manager (sadly XOSL had VESA problems with the box)
4) Ran XP first to put the disk signature back (so Vista would start) and made a third partition shared by both OSes.

Both have C: for the system drive and Vista is in the best place for the future i.e. at the start of the disk.

[Michael]

@Heebeejeebee - Thanks for that It seems it's another feature Microsoft have changed. As to whether this is a good or bad thing I suppose it depends.

I found an article what BCDEdit offers. I wonder how many of those commands I'll actually ever use :?

[FN-GM]

Ive done this at home. Very easy to do. Just partition your hard drive to 2 drives, stick vista on one, and xp on another. Bobs your uncle, but it boots into vista by default. You should be able to down grade, as i understand with each vista license you are able to down grade.

You can only downgrade on Ultimate, Business & Enterprise Edition. You cannot downgrade Home Basic or Home Premium.