Help with Dual Boot Setup - Vista 64 and XP

1kiwi · 20 Apr 2008 at 11:47

Hi Guys,

I'm about to install a dual boot setup. I would like to keep Vista as my primary OS on my Raptor, whilst installing XP on a small partition on my F1. I'm currently running on Vista 64. XP will not be used often, however i need it to play a game that is poorly supported within Vista. My plan is to:

Load XP onto my F1 (deleting the Vista partition)
Load Vista onto the Raptor
Shrink and partition XP from within Vista

My question is - do i need to install all critical drivers such as mobo, chipset, video and critical apps such as winrar etc onto both OS's?

Also, i plan to use the remaining space within my F1 as an applications / games drive. With both OS's on separate partitions / drives, is it possible to share apps and install games on a different drive / partition.

For example, i would to install COD4 on the remaining F1 partition and play it from within Vista. Essentially, i want to keep my raptor partition as uncluttered as possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

valerian · 20 Apr 2008 at 11:55

if you want to use the programs on each os then yes, unless you use a folder on one or the other to install the program to, using one or the other like a data drive
isnt it just easier to buy a smaller hard drive for xp, and boot to whichever from the bios
hope this makes sense

1kiwi · 20 Apr 2008 at 12:47

Hi, sort of. I don't really want to buy another raptor as i have all the space i need within my F1. I guess it will be find to replicate the basic apps accross OS's.

Does my 1, 2, 3 step plan look ok?

1kiwi · 20 Apr 2008 at 13:56

*bump* anyone?

Skeeter · 20 Apr 2008 at 15:43

you can install XP onto your partition fine. Make sure you install XP first and then Vista, otherwise you wont be able to dual boot (the XP boot loader wont recognise a pre-existing Vista install).

After that, yeah its fine to install all your games onto a singel drive. Its just a bunch of files. you will have to 'intall' onto both OS's ffor them both to use it as they willl both need there own set of registy data, but the files themselfs are fine. I do it on mine. I have an 80GB split 40 each for Vista and XP, and then an application driove, media driove and data drive that both OSes use.

A good tip is also to move your my documents folder onto the larger partition away from the OS, so should you need to, you can just wipe the partition and reinstall the OS without having to worry about the data. The only trouble with this is that XP and Vista organise the My documents folders differently, but its not to bad.

1kiwi · 20 Apr 2008 at 17:35

Skeeter said:
A good tip is also to move your my documents folder onto the larger partition away from the OS, so should you need to, you can just wipe the partition and reinstall the OS without having to worry about the data. The only trouble with this is that XP and Vista organise the My documents folders differently, but its not to bad.

Hey thanks for the comments. I'm not really going to be using XP for anything else than playing a legacy game. However, i would like to move my my documents folder to the Samsung F1 as it's much larger. As the My documents folder is quite integrated into vista menus etc, do you know of a better way to move it to another drive other than cutting it from the documents and settings folder?