Dual boot windows XP & windows 7. easyest way

mrfun1981 · 6 Apr 2010 at 19:48

Sister called me & said her PC powers up but nothing happens but as she is blind & windows is not kicking in n loading her speech software she cant tell me whats on the screen. So going there tomorrow to have a look.

She spoke to me about putting a dual boot system on her PC as she wants to test out latest software like Win7 & update IE & office etc, but she dont want to uninstall the version's she is used to yet in case she dont like the new ones or her speech software dont work with them that well.

So as any bro would i said i would sort it out BUT iv never set up a dual boot system before, so iv got a few question:

1, im hoping its just the case of setting up 2 partitions on the same hard drive & putting each OS on one partition. ( but im guessing its not that simple) So whats the best way to do it.....So whats the simplest way of doing it

2. Also can a timer be set to boot up XP as the default OS if no buttons as pressed to select anything else.

Im sure there will be more questions & an il post them here if i think of any more.

Im hoping its just XP thats gone **** up & re-install will fix it otherwise il be taking a trip to OcUK to get parts as she lives in stoke

Cheers

robinbredin · 6 Apr 2010 at 20:00

There is an journal below on how to duel boot Win 7 and XP.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html?ltr=D

bledd · 6 Apr 2010 at 20:16

Do you live close to your sister?

I'd reccomend just switching straight to 7 and not messing around with dual boot. I would just put in another hard drive and keep the XP one somewhere else incsae you want to revert to XP.

I would imagine that 7 will have better features for a blind person in the ease of access centre, but I've never used it..

mrfun1981 · 6 Apr 2010 at 20:54

robinbredin said:
There is an journal below on how to duel boot Win 7 and XP.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html?ltr=D

Thanks for that, just what i was after. Had seen some other guides on line which confused me. but think i understand that one

bledd. said:
Do you live close to your sister?

I'd reccomend just switching straight to 7 and not messing around with dual boot. I would just put in another hard drive and keep the XP one somewhere else incsae you want to revert to XP.

I would imagine that 7 will have better features for a blind person in the ease of access centre, but I've never used it..

Yeah i can see you point there. But i dont live that close about 50 mins on train then a 15 min walk to hers.

I could tell her about access centre, but with out her spending time on a system with it she wont know how good or bad it is.

Il give you a example why she come up with dual boot. The speech software "Jaws" http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp used to work fine with windows live messenger but they did some up dates to it & then it didnt always read everything, but a friend of hers told her the latest update for the speech software worked with it, at a $1000 a to buy the new version cost to much. So i had to find a older version of windows live & put that on her system but didnt have time to do that & she was a few weeks with out using it. An with a 2nd OS she got one where she can test things & if it dont work or she messes up she got the other one to keep using

An there is Microsoft office, she still use 2003 but would like to try 2007 but iv told her the layout is all different an she said it would prob take a while to learn it, so with the 2nd OS she can still use both versions until she is happy to upgrade to 2007.