Dual Boot. Vista 1st or XP 1st?

[Zer0Cool]

Hello Everyone,

I want to create a dual boot on my PC and want to know what OS I should install first? i have Vista Ultimate 64 bit & Win XP Home 32

Option 1 - Install Vista 64bit 1st then Install XP 32bit
Option 2 - Install XP 32bit 1st then Install Vista 64 bit

From what I hear people say I think its Vista first. If someone can get technical about it and explain to me why XP or Vista needs to be first I would appreciate it.

Also I don't know anything about dual boots, so any tips are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[xtremezx2]

xp first, then vista otherwise xp will overwrite the boot file for vista.

 

[mammikoura]

you can do it either way. There are some guides online that you can read if you want to.

Me? I'd go xp first and then vista. But either way you should be able to get it working.

 

[wmorri]

I would recommend that you install whichever OS you currently use most frequently. Followed by the other one.

 

[Zer0Cool]

I would assume I will be using Vista as my primary OS, never had Vista b4, so I dont know what probles I might run it to...

I also asked this question on a different forum, and here is what some of the people told me;

"XP first. Basically, whatever operating system you install is going to want to write to the hard drives boot sector, pointing to it's boot loader. The XP boot loader won't recognize Vista, whereas the Vista bootloader will recognize XP."

"The rule for multi-boot Windows systems has always been older OS first, newer OS second. XP's boot loader will not recognize Vista, since Vista is newer. That's not something an update will fix. Vista's will detect XP, and give you the menu choice. That is why Vista goes on second."

It looks like they know what they are talking about...So I guess Its XP first.

I just ordered 3 of the "WD6400AAKS" hdd. What I will probably do is raid 0 2 of them and have the 3rd for movies/music. 640=640 = 1.280TB. Hopefully I will be using Vista as my primary OS, that's if there will ne no compatibility issues...etc

The process that I had in mind, is to set up raid 0 first, then boot from XP CD Then allocate 150G for XP, and install. Do all the Microsoft updates, drivers updates..etc. Then Boot from Vista CD use up all the remaining hdd space. Is this correct?

After I get both OS installed how do I make it so when PC boots it will bring me to a promt screen to select which OS I want to boot to? And Vise versa, If I want Vista to load right away how would I do that?

Thanks

 

[Celegorm]

XP first. Like said above, XP's boot loader will not recognize Vista with out having to boot off of the vista CD and fixing the boot sector anyways. Save the time and just do XP first.

 

[IAntDemo]

i don't know why people dual boot only for important things.

but when i gave it a shot, i never even used the second one, because if im on my pc ill use it for everything, and if i did'nt then i'd need to shut down and go in the other but it takes to long and its just frustrating so ask yourself, do i really need 2 operating systems?

 

[Zer0Cool]

XP first. Like said above, XP's boot loader will not recognize Vista with out having to boot off of the vista CD and fixing the boot sector anyways. Save the time and just do XP first.

Thank you

i don't know why people dual boot only for important things.

but when i gave it a shot, i never even used the second one, because if im on my pc ill use it for everything, and if i did'nt then i'd need to shut down and go in the other but it takes to long and its just frustrating so ask yourself, do i really need 2 operating systems?

The only reason I'm considering going to dual boot is because I hear that there are some compatibility problems with the Vista 64. You never know when XP might come in handy. Plus if I just install Vista and then I realize that one of my programs or games is not working, I would have to remove vista then install xp and then vista again, I might just do a dual boot right away u know..

 

[IAntDemo]

well why not go try vista 32bit, i use it no problems now.

and in the future near enough will be all for vista64bit

 

[Zer0Cool]

I need 64 bit in order to use all 4G of ram

Can someone tell me please, how big is the Windows XP Home 32bit? I will have a raid 0 of total 1.280TB I'm trying to decide how big of a partition I should make for it... Hopefully Vista Ultimate 64bit will be my Primary OS