Vista and XP Dual boot

In today's market; if you are buying a laptop or pc, there is a high likelihood that windows vista starter would come pre-installed. What to do with it? Here is Zyger's hints...

Understanding Vista Starter

Vista starter is somewhat a demo version of Vista. It has many limitations. To list a few.

1. Maximum memory support is 1GB
2. Cannot open more than 3 programs simultaneously
3. Has networking constraints eg. Ad hoc networking
4. It does not have aero theme which is synonymous with Vista
   

With these restrictions (especially 3 simultaneous programs max); Vista starter is not a fully fledged OS as windows xp. So we suggest to have a dual boot system with windows xp, if you really need to keep Vista with you (You have paid for it, by the way)

Here is how to have a dual boot with xp when vista is preinstalled

1. Install windows xp in a separate partition
2. Once the installation is complete, your PC will be able to boot in only windows xp. This is because; still the boot loader is not configured yet.
3. Download VistaBootPRO software
4. Install it (Note you need .net 2 framework for this)
5. Open VistaBootPRO, ignore the prompt to backup your BCD. Go to the System Bootloader tab, select "Windows Vista Bootloader" in the first section and "All Drives" in the second section and then click Install Bootloader . Next, go to the Diagnostics item on the menu bar and select "Run Diagnostics". VistaBootPRO will default back to the Manage OS Entries page and you will see that you now have entries there for "Earlier versions of Windows" as well as "Microsoft Windows Vista".

Now you got a dual boot with xp and vista. while booting the system you can select which OS to be used.

Dual booting : Risk free introduction to FOSS world

If you are new to the world of FOSS and willing to experiment with FOSS operating systems, yet not like to forget everything about license OS, the best thing is to have a dual boot.

I have successfully done dual boots with Windows xp / PCLinuxOS, Windows xp / Fedora core and Windows xp / Red hat Linux. Yes what you think is correct, I have changes the linux OS but not the Windows xp. There are reasons for it.

1. As Linux OSs are free, I have the total freedom of switching them as a new version / OS is coming. But due to the huge cost involved, I did not change my windows xp for more than 5 years. still I'm not willing to spend / invest for Vista.

2. Windows xp is one of my favourite OSs. It is so nice. Well done Mr. Gates


Here I'm not going to teach you step by step how to install a dual boot. You can search the internet and can find any number of articles, tutorials, cheat sheets on them.

But will give you the very abc on them.

1. First install Windows xp

2. Install linux OS and select to use an unpartitioned free space or carefully select a partition which does not have your important data to be formatted. PCLinuxOS has a new facility so that you can resize windows partitions.

3. Be sure that in the bootloader, it has included windows in the OS list. Else you will lose windows.

Good luck