Legit Reviews

is there a simple way to have xp pro and vista in a dual boot set up?

Create a partition on your hard drive and install vista/xp there.

Make sure it is large enough for all the files you want to install there as its not easy to change it once it has been installed.

This option will make vista the default choice for booting up (whichever you install first) though.

so to shift partitions what do I do.. Will it give me the option before boot up or do I have to catch one of those buttons that will give me the option?

hercules71185 wrote:so to shift partitions what do I do.. Will it give me the option before boot up or do I have to catch one of those buttons that will give me the option?

Yes , you'll have the option "during" boot up to pick the os you want to run . If you miss the option , then Vista will load ; but by default you'll have 30 seconds to make your choice .

Most people install XP first then Vista , and you can actully install Vista from XP (no need to boot from cd/dvd to install) . Just make sure you direct Vista to the the correct partition or seperate drive . After both are installed the os boot up option will appear from then on .

stereo55 wrote: Yes , you'll have the option "during" boot up to pick the os you want to run . If you miss the option , then Vista will load ; but by default you'll have 30 seconds to make your choice .

Most people install XP first then Vista , and you can actully install Vista from XP (no need to boot from cd/dvd to install) . Just make sure you direct Vista to the the correct partition or seperate drive . After both are installed the os boot up option will appear from then on .

What if I've already done this successfully.
And now I'd like to triple boot into Linux .... Will the GRUB boot loader "take over", and/or screw up the existing Windows boot loader?

GRUB will try and take over. Are all your installs on one drive?

I had problems with RAID and a second drive OS installs and grub.

Dan

DMB2000uk wrote:GRUB will try and take over. Are all your installs on one drive?

I had problems with RAID and a second drive OS installs and grub.

Dan

No.
Each OS will be on it's own drive.

Seems like I did this once before long ago and it worked fine.
What I'm concerned with is if in the future, I want to discontinue use of Linux, I don't want to have to reinstall XP & Vista to get the Microsoft boot loader back.
Maybe there's a better way to do that of which I'm not aware????

Using the recovery console from one of the vista or xp installation disks, you can choose to run "fixmbr" after linux has been removed and it will go back to using the MS boot loader.

Dan

Thanks for the info Dan.
I haven't looked at Linux since Ubuntu 6.06 LTS first came out.
I acutally prefer the KDE desktop so I ran Kubuntu.

Thought I might have another look to see what they've done to it.

Downloaded the ISO file and ran the latest Ubutu from the LiveCD for a while.

Immediately upon booting, all the nightmarish memories from previous installs of trying to get hardware & necessary software to run came flooding back. (Strike 1)
Right away I noticed that the drive attached to the Marvell controller on the BadAxe2 didn't show up. Apparently there are no drivers out there for it. (Strike 2)
Then I discovered that Halo won't run under emulation software. (Strike 3)
"It's outta there!"

And to be honest ....
Compared to the visual appearance of Vista .... it was very boring.
Yea there are add ons to make Linux visually better ... but then you gotta make the damn things work.
For me anyways ... it's just not worth all the effort.
"Your milage may vary."

DL126 wrote:Downloaded the ISO file and ran the latest Ubutu from the LiveCD for a while.

Immediately upon booting, all the nightmarish memories from previous installs of trying to get hardware & necessary software to run came flooding back. (Strike 1)
Right away I noticed that the drive attached to the Marvell controller on the BadAxe2 didn't show up. Apparently there are no drivers out there for it. (Strike 2)
Then I discovered that Halo won't run under emulation software. (Strike 3)
"It's outta there!"

And to be honest ....
Compared to the visual appearance of Vista .... it was very boring.
Yea there are add ons to make Linux visually better ... but then you gotta make the damn things work.
For me anyways ... it's just not worth all the effort.
"Your milage may vary."

I definitely agree. I have a lot of things I like about ubuntu.
its true about windows having many flaws I agree 200%
BUT, Ubuntu is better for a user who does not play games or people to used to programs that is windows exclusive. Such as photoshop cs3. Wine can run some games but, I don't get benchmarks as high or as smooth of gameplay. Ubuntu seems like a great program with a bunch of features like beryl to make it look much better than windows. But, I for one like the compatibility of windows. Once linux gets bigger and has more options I'll switch but, there is just to much that is a pain for linux.

Found this article about duel booting Vista and Linux . Maybe helpful to some .... http://port25.technet.com/archive/2006/ ... pport.aspx

I would take a lok at the following:
http://lifehacker.com/software/ubuntu/h ... 193474.php - triple boot

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp - xp & vista

good luck

i have one such system (vista\xp)

I have one set up with dual boot Xp/Vista, while i was repartitioning the drive to do the vista install Partition Commander installed system commander, system commander comes up and asks me which I want, worked so I let it on.

laters