Way To Dual Boot Windows Vista And XP On Your Laptop PDF Print E-mail
Written by Francua Smith   
Saturday, 12 September 2009 13:42
Many folks have asked me about dual booting Windows Vista and Windows XP on the same laptop. Why is there this desire to dual boot? Well, for one thing, there is the convenience. Instead of installing Vista on one machine and XP on another, you can just use one machine. For others, their workplace might require them to test certain software in Windows Vista and Windows XP to make sure there are no problems. In this article, we'll take a look at how we can dual boot Vista and XP on the same laptop.
by FrancuaSmith


Many folks have asked me about dual booting Windows Vista and Windows XP on the same laptop. Why is there this desire to dual boot? Well, for one thing, there is the convenience. Instead of installing Vista on one machine and XP on another, you can just use one machine. For others, their workplace might require them to test certain software in Windows Vista and Windows XP to make sure there are no problems. In this article, we'll take a look at how we can dual boot Vista and XP on the same laptop.

Step 1: Understand What You're Doing Dual booting is a good concept - however, you do need to understand what you're doing. Meddling around with drive partitions and boot sectors might cause you to lose data. So one thing that I'd advise you to do is to do more research into your dual booting needs first - do you truly need to dual boot? Think about that previously embarking on this tiny dual booting adventure.

Step 2: Back up data The first thing you must do - the FIRST thing - is to back up all your critical documents and files. Also, make sure you back up and try to restore those documents back. I've seen many folks who use an imaging program (e.g. Acronis TrueImage) and successfully back up their documents. However, when their system crashes and they try to restore the files - it doesn't work. So always, always make sure you back up and try restoring the documents before proceeding to the next steps. Another option for back up is to get an external hard disk - this is a simpler solution. If you get a big external hard disk, you can copy all your documents over and they will be quite safe.

Step 3: Download GParted What do you do next? Well, you download this neat program called GParted. What GParted does is that it shrinks the Windows XP partition. Once it is shrunk, you can burn the Windows XP partition into a DVD. You can then leave room for Vista (at least 10 GB worth of space).

Step 4: Install Vista and run EasyBCD Once you've used GParted and shrunk the Windows XP partition, you should install Windows Vista. Once installed, you should download a software called EasyBCD. This program allows you to change boot up name of the different partitions to your liking.

Step 5: Try it out The final step here is to attempt out the dual boot configuration. When the machine boots up, you should be capable to select either Vista or XP as your installation choices. Make confident that you can boot into both operating systems and they work normally.

Conclusion In summary, you can see that there is an advantage to dual booting. It is not that hard a process, but you do need to know what you're doing before you try it out. So until next time, happy dual booting and good luck!

DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice.

Francua Smith is a good Computer specialist who has a lot of experience on laptop computers. He will help you to choose your own nice laptop computer.