Can you dual-boot XP & Vista, when Vista is installed first?

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lyonrouge

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#19597 23-Feb-2008 10:50

In the past, the MS dual boot support was incrimental, i.e. if you wanted 2K and XP, you had to install 2K first, then XP, as the XP new how to support the "backward" operating system. Is this the same for Vista / XP?

Background: Learning Media Center on Vista, but have encountered to ob behaviour (screen resolution issues on Plasma panel, consistant bluescreen and library loading issues). I want to install XP Media Center on the same hardware to see if these issues occur in XP also.

manhinli

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#112447 23-Feb-2008 11:15

APC Magazine has written a whole lot of stuff about dual booting between all sorts of configurations of Vista/XP/Linux.

It helped me get my Vista laptop to dual-boot with XP.

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lyonrouge

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#112453 23-Feb-2008 11:44

thanks for the link, looks like I will simply overwrite vista with XP.

It appears that the traditionally supported dual boot (older system installed first) is not supported under Vista and you have to use a third party tool to allow dual booting, this is a little disappointing and would invalidate my testing (i.e. using MS out of the box products).

thanks again.

manhinli

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#112454 23-Feb-2008 11:49

lyonrouge: It appears that the traditionally supported dual boot (older system installed first) is not supported under Vista and you have to use a third party tool to allow dual booting, this is a little disappointing and would invalidate my testing (i.e. using MS out of the box products).

Vista overwrites the boot loader - which doesn't seem to check for XP.

EasyBCD just writes to the Vista boot loader's BCD, and allows entries to be listed there that's all, it's not adding another boot loader like GRUB or something.

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lyonrouge

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#112457 23-Feb-2008 11:57

manhinli:
lyonrouge: It appears that the traditionally supported dual boot (older system installed first) is not supported under Vista and you have to use a third party tool to allow dual booting, this is a little disappointing and would invalidate my testing (i.e. using MS out of the box products).

Vista overwrites the boot loader - which doesn't seem to check for XP.

EasyBCD just writes to the Vista boot loader's BCD, and allows entries to be listed there that's all, it's not adding another boot loader like GRUB or something.

I appreciate what the alteration to the boot loader is doign, however, it is not a supported microsoft functionality, so I will not use it for my testing, but thanks again for the back ground and this saves me time in the long run as I won't try and do something that can not be done with the COS product.

manhinli

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#112458 23-Feb-2008 12:11

You can also just use bcdedit.exe (via Command Prompt) but it's wayyyy too hard.

Adding previous Windows NT-based OSes into the BCD is supported (like XP or 2000).

So how is that "not a supported microsoft functionality"?

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lyonrouge

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#112465 23-Feb-2008 12:46

manhinli: You can also just use bcdedit.exe (via Command Prompt) but it's wayyyy too hard.

Adding previous Windows NT-based OSes into the BCD is supported (like XP or 2000).

So how is that "not a supported microsoft functionality"?

maybe I should put that in context. As I work for an IT company (non technical role), friends and family ask me for help with PC bits and pieces, and normally I can help, but I've been trying to ignore Vista, but now it's well and truely here. I was testing installation and configuration so that when I get asked about it I maybe of some use. In the past I have advised existing 2K F&F that they can install XP on top using the standard install, and go back to their 2K install if they need to. With the problems I'm having with Vista I thought I may do the same thing myself, and that is how I got to this point.

Basically, I can not give the old advice to F&F and there is no way I can explain bootloader editing to them. Whenever I try and help I try to avoid doing anything that is not included in the MS packaging as that could make it difficult for anyone that come along after.

manhinli

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#112467 23-Feb-2008 12:57

Ah..

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aly369

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#112812 25-Feb-2008 01:27

hi i have done this before

go to this link

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

it worked like a charm

basicly you partishon your hard drive when your done you have to delete vista in disk part then undo diskpart in command or right click on computer (in xp) then click mange

hope this helps

freitasm

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#122997 12-Apr-2008 07:15

I am unlocking this thrad as requested.

lyonrouge

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#123023 12-Apr-2008 11:40

The solution I've implimented is adding another hard drive and using the BIOS to swap the boot order, leaving no dependancy on MBR for either of the O/S, making it easier to decommission one or the other later.

DragonSlayre

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#125107 20-Apr-2008 17:12

I did it with Windows server 2003, but I did it the hardway - I then found this link, and although I haven't tried it, it looks extremely easy:

http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=88231