I currently run XP Pro on my work machine, and am contemplating dual booting it with Vista 64. XP Pro is 32 bit. If I make a partition on my C: drive to install Vista 64 to, am I going to run into problems because one OS is 64-bit and the other one isn't? Would it be better to install Vista 64 to a physically separate hard drive?
I currently have XP-32 / Vista-64 in a dual-boot setup running off the same HDD (installed to different partitions, natch): no problems to report. I use Vista's boot manager to switch between them: thankfully, Vista was smart enough to recognize my XP partition during installation and configure itself accordingly.
Sweet. Thanks, unbongwah.
Not that you need another opinion, but I ran WinXP (32bit) with Vista Ultimate (64bit) in dual-boot just fine, using Vista's boot manager, just as unbongwah did. No hitches.
My only hiccup came when I went to remove the WinXP drive altogether earlier this year. Then some tips from this forum gave me a heads-up that the boot loader was housed on the other WinXP drive, not my Vista drive, which was causing the problems with getting rid of WinXP. After fixing that, I've been running Vista on its own, no dual-boot.
Equisilus,
I'm thinking of doing what you did, run a xp/vista dual boot system. I want to slowly migrate to vista and then remove xp from my compter. Could you please link to the tips you found here or give me a brief synopsis of them so I know what to look for.
Thanks.
The tip came here. It was something I wouldn't have thought to look at, and it was instrumental in getting me through that tough bit of troubleshooting. It will, at least, give you something to watch for if you have issues when you rid yourself of XP.Originally Posted by Demorve
Thanks
I went down the other route because I wanted effectively separate installs of each which I could hose at will without affecting the other. I'm adding it here for interest as much as anything else.
I stuck a second (sata) drive in the machine and installed Vista onto that. When I want to switch between them I change the boot preference in the BIOS. I know it's a clunkier, more expensive way of doing it, but it does mean I have two completely independent installations.
That sounds like a good idea for anyone who doesn't mind the BIOS switch. I didn't think of it when I did mine, even though I had two separate drives for my WinXP and Vista installs. The two drives were actually what caused my problem, since the boot loader was installed on the drive I was trying to remove, even though I had removed WinXP from the boot menu. Once I fixed all that, I could remove the WinXP drive (a 250 GB one) and left my Vista (500 GB) one intact. 'Course, now I've upgraded all that to a 1TB drive with a new Vista Ultimate x64.
I did try a traditional dual boot first time around which eventually resulted In me having to reinstall both xp and vista. For round two I figured an extra hard disk and the bios switch was a minor inconveniece compared to reinstalling xp, vista, wow+the sims and multiple expansions twice over.
For the sake of $70 and the minor inconvenience of figuring out how to change the bios boot order I can't recommend it enough, especially if you're lookingv for a bit of extra disk space and to ditch xp at the end of it.
I'm going to install vista 64 onto a another drive and hopefully I will be able to eliminate the xp drive by summer. The main reason I'm dual booting is because my current laser printer doesn't work with a 64 bit os. It took them over a year to get a vista 32 driver out and I'm hoping they have one by summer. Anyway I have a couple more questions. I currently have 4 gig of memory installed and have another 4 gig sitting on my desk. If I install them for vista 64 to use will it have a negative effect on the xp install? I think xp will ignore the extra ram, but wanted to ask more knowlegable people before I install. The other question: is there a program for vista that will act like a printer and then automatically send the file to another computer to be printed? My printer is connected to a dedicated server (smb2003) and this would slove my printing problems with vista.
Another question, I got the vista drive ready for installation and I was wondering, since I'm going to be installing vista on a separate drive, couldn't I go into the bios and make the vista drive first in the boot order, then install? Would that place the boot loader on the vista drive? My thinking is if I make the vista drive the first bootup drive in the bios, install vista the boot loader would be on the vista drive and I would still have a dual boot system. It would also make it easy to eliminate the xp drive. Opinions?
It sounds good in theory, but considering what I had to learn, as mentioned above, I'm hardly the person that should be answering. ;)
If you're going to use the BIOS to do the switching, you can essentially remove the WinXP drive, install Vista on your other drive, then replace the WinXP drive and do as you will. If you aren't going to use Vista's boot manager thingy, then your way should work, I do believe, but I'd be ultra-safe and unplug the other drive altogether.
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