Vista first, then XP in dual boot

mtroxmtrox Minnesota
edited February 2007 in Science & Tech
Had a buddy buy a new Vista machine. He's got some stuff that has no idea what to do with Vista so he has to dual boot. Turns out there is not a lot of experience dual booting when you start with Vista, then add XP. I think the problem is that Vista ignores boot.ini. So when the XP installer copies its files then reboots, you just come back into Vista.

I think of some ways around the problem but none of them are easy. Is that the way it is or is there an easy way around this. Oh, and my friend, he took the Vista machine back.

Comments

  • JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
    edited February 2007
    Only supported dual boot (I can't find the KB right now) is for XP in place, and Vista installed over the top of it.

    That way the Vista bootloader will see XP.
  • mtroxmtrox Minnesota
    edited February 2007
    Yea that's what it seems like. There's always a way. I think you'd have to know the entry the XP installer needs for the Vista boot loader and......well....it would just be a lot of dinking around. I think he found the KB you're referring to. I don't have it right now either.
  • JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
    edited February 2007
    Installing Vista, installing XP, the doing a repair install of Vista may have a chance. I think it worked with old versions.
  • mtroxmtrox Minnesota
    edited February 2007
    Thanks Jonesy, but he's not like us SM guys where its a puzzle. It's his business so he just took the Vista box back to the store. Some of that business software wll tell you it only supports up to Win 98. In fact it was just a couple years ago he could upgrade his shipping computer to Win 2K because the UPS software was Win 95 based.
  • JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
    edited February 2007
    Compatability mode when launching programs can solve most of those issues. MS Windows is nothing if not backwards compatible. Right click your .exe and choose properties. Go to the compatability tab, and you can set it up there. It's about a 90% success rate.

    People who are rash about returning hardware shouldn't buy hardware. :)
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited February 2007
    Unfortunately, a very important piece of software that I use all the time (DxO Optics Pro) is in that 10% of "completely incompatible no matter what..." :(
  • JonseyJonsey Microsoft Corporation
    edited February 2007
    Yeah, 90% means 70% ;)
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