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.