Experience in dual-booting XP and Win7

I

IUnknown

I'm going to install Win7 on a laptop that already has XP. Wondering
about users' positive or negative experiences in doing this.

Is there any disadvantage in installing to the same partition (C:), or
is it better (or necessary) to allocate a new partition?
 
A

Augustus

IUnknown said:
I'm going to install Win7 on a laptop that already has XP. Wondering
about users' positive or negative experiences in doing this.

Is there any disadvantage in installing to the same partition (C:), or
is it better (or necessary) to allocate a new partition?
Windows 7 will not allow you do set up a dual boot install with both OS's
sharing the same partition. It will do a clean install and create a
Windows.old folder containing the previous OS and user files for transfer
and access. Dual boot require a separate partition or drive available to
install Windows 7.
 
A

Augustus

Gordon said:
Which dual boot ALWAYS has done......
No...on earlier versions of Windows you could do dual boot from the same
drive. Windows 98 and Windows 2000 could be installed on the same drive. a
good idea but could be done. XP and onward, no. But it was possible with
older iterations of Windows.
 
A

Augustus

Augustus said:
No...on earlier versions of Windows you could do dual boot from the same
drive. Windows 98 and Windows 2000 could be installed on the same drive. a
good idea but could be done. XP and onward, no. But it was possible with
older iterations of Windows.
Should read "Really not a good idea but could be done"...
 
G

Gordon

Augustus said:
No...on earlier versions of Windows you could do dual boot from the same
drive. Windows 98 and Windows 2000 could be installed on the same drive. a
good idea but could be done. XP and onward, no. But it was possible with
older iterations of Windows.
Eh? No-one has EVER recommended doing that. If you have and have got away
with it then you have been EXTREMELY lucky.
 
A

Augustus

Eh? No-one has EVER recommended doing that. If you have and have got away
with it then you have been EXTREMELY lucky.
Read your original reply and read my post. You stated that dual boot has
always required two different partition. It has not. That was my point. I
never said it was desirable or that I ever did it. I haven't. Nor would I
ever recommend that it be done 9 years ago. t's never been recommended or
desirable for a vast number of obvious reasons, but in the past it HAS been
possible to have a dual boot system installed on the same partition. Which
was my point.
 
B

*BUSY*

If you google "dual boot XP 7" there is a ton of information available on
the subject. You would need to shrink the current partition to give the
other operating system room to install. As a personal preference I would
create a new partition, format it and copy XP, or any NT-based OS, to
partition 1, the primary partition, before installing 7. Otherwise Windows 7
bootloader may not include XP or XP's boot.ini file does not get changed
properly to reflect the new partitioning. Correct me if I'm wrong but there
was no dual boot setup when I left XP on partition 2, an "extended"
partition, and did a full install of Windows 7 on the primary partition.
Eventually I did get XP to show up in the bootloader menu and even boot up
after some hair pulling.



__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4659 (20091203) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

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G

Gordon

*BUSY* said:
If you google "dual boot XP 7"
Who is "you"? As you are using Outlook Express please QUOTE the post you are
replying to.

Thank you.
 

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