WIN XP & VISTA ON SAME COMPUTER

I have vista home premium installed on a new computer. I would like to take
the hard drive with xp installed, out of my old computer and install it
along with the vista hard drive and be able to boot from either. Is this
possible? What problems might I encounter?
Appreciate any thoughts. Richard

You may have to reinstall xp on the harddrive on the new computer. The
hardware between them will be different.


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richard dunning wrote:
> I have vista home premium installed on a new computer. I would like to
> take the hard drive with xp installed, out of my old computer and
> install it along with the vista hard drive and be able to boot from
> either. Is this possible? What problems might I encounter?
> Appreciate any thoughts. Richard
>

You certainly can dual-boot, but doing it this way (after the fact) will
be harder. The "normal" way to set up a dual-boot is to install the
older operating system first and then the new operating system. These
links may help:

Dual Booting Windows Vista & Windows XP -
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html

Install Windows XP On A Machine Already Running Windows Vista (MVP John
Barnett) -
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/install...ning_vista.htm

There are some other factors to consider, too.

1. Make sure that you have XP drivers for all your hardware first. Do
this by going to the computer mftr.'s website (assuming it is an OEM box
like an HP, Dell, etc.). If there are no drivers for XP for your
specific make/model computer, forget it and go with a virtual solution
instead. Understand that at the very least you will need to do a Repair
Install of XP after putting it in the new computer, possibly a Clean
Install.

2. There is an issue with System Restore on a dual-boot between XP and
Vista if the operating systems can see each other. See MVP Bert Kinney's
information about this - http://bertk.mvps.org/html/vista.html

There is another solution - virtual computing. Use Microsoft's VirtualPC
(free) or VMWare (not free but I prefer it) and create a virtual machine
running XP with Vista being the host. This doesn't utilize your old hard
drive, but you could format it and use it for extra storage on the new
machine. Here is the VirtualPC newsgroup for questions about using it -
microsoft.public.virtualpc


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

Thanks for the response. I did read the info at the links you suggested.
Didn't realize the process would be so complicated. I don't feel that I
have enough computer skills to tackle this one. Again thanks.
Richard

"richard dunning" <> wrote in message
news:94545966-EC6D-4F10-A37A-...
>I have vista home premium installed on a new computer. I would like to
>take the hard drive with xp installed, out of my old computer and install
>it along with the vista hard drive and be able to boot from either. Is
>this possible? What problems might I encounter?
> Appreciate any thoughts. Richard
>

I once ruined my Vista because I wanted to "improve" a sick XP on another
partition. The Boot Menu lost all the memory of Vista because I tried to
install XP afterwards (although in Repair mode).

It is highly advisable not to mess with XP after you got Vista installed
unless XP is preexisting, although certain people claimed that they
developed ways to do it but you need three partitions, I think for that.

It may be a better idea to install another Vista on the second HDD because
having a second OS is often useful. Example: I had to verify if my WD HDD
was OK, I mean C: drive. I downloaded Lifeguard Diagnostics from Western
Digital and ran it but from another partition, actually on this machine I
had a preexisting XP on D:. So it worked fine. It turned out HDD was OK.

"richard dunning" <> wrote in message
news:6B5FEB9F-5E44-42C8-AA0F-...
> Thanks for the response. I did read the info at the links you suggested.
> Didn't realize the process would be so complicated. I don't feel that I
> have enough computer skills to tackle this one. Again thanks.
> Richard
>
> "richard dunning" <> wrote in message
> news:94545966-EC6D-4F10-A37A-...
>>I have vista home premium installed on a new computer. I would like to
>>take the hard drive with xp installed, out of my old computer and install
>>it along with the vista hard drive and be able to boot from either. Is
>>this possible? What problems might I encounter?
>> Appreciate any thoughts. Richard
>>
>

richard dunning wrote:
> I have vista home premium installed on a new computer. I would like to
> take the hard drive with xp installed, out of my old computer and
> install it along with the vista hard drive and be able to boot from
> either. Is this possible? What problems might I encounter?
> Appreciate any thoughts. Richard
>


Normally, the older OS must be installed first unless you wish to
acquire and use some 3rd-party partition and boot management utility.
(In which case you have to follow the instructions provided by whatever
3rd party solution you select.) However, this KB Article (not for the
faint of heart) explains how to repair the Vista boot process after
installing WinXP:

Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of
the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

However, dual-booting is no longer necessary in most situations.

Why not download a Virtual Machine application, such as Microsoft's
VirtualPC 2007 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.asp?) or
Innotek's VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) and run Win2K and your
legacy applications within a virtual computer. Both are free and work
with Vista.

NOTE: Microsoft does not support the use of VirtualPC 2007 on Vista
Home editions, but several people have reported that it works. Your
results may vary.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

Bruce
That was some very good reading about using 2 operating systems. Not sure I
want to try it though because it does not reference the home versions of
Vista as being supported.
Thanks for your input and I have bookmarket the Msft page.
Richard

"Bruce Chambers" <3t> wrote in message
news:...
> richard dunning wrote:
>> I have vista home premium installed on a new computer. I would like to
>> take the hard drive with xp installed, out of my old computer and install
>> it along with the vista hard drive and be able to boot from either. Is
>> this possible? What problems might I encounter?
>> Appreciate any thoughts. Richard
>>
>
>
> Normally, the older OS must be installed first unless you wish to
> acquire and use some 3rd-party partition and boot management utility. (In
> which case you have to follow the instructions provided by whatever 3rd
> party solution you select.) However, this KB Article (not for the faint
> of heart) explains how to repair the Vista boot process after installing
> WinXP:
>
> Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the
> Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529
>
> However, dual-booting is no longer necessary in most situations.
>
> Why not download a Virtual Machine application, such as Microsoft's
> VirtualPC 2007 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.asp?) or
> Innotek's VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) and run Win2K and your
> legacy applications within a virtual computer. Both are free and work
> with Vista.
>
> NOTE: Microsoft does not support the use of VirtualPC 2007 on Vista Home
> editions, but several people have reported that it works. Your results
> may vary.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Bruce Chambers
>
> Help us help you:
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
> They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin
>
> Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand
> Russell
>
> The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
> killed a great many philosophers.
> ~ Denis Diderot