Replaced crappy Vista with XP, but what about a dual-boot kind of setup...?

[Creepshow]

Ok here's the deal - my new computer came with Vista installed, but since Vista is a piece of poo (sorry, Microsoft!) I have reverted back to Windows XP (so the computer is now running XP). Much better. ;)

HOWEVER, I want to set up a kind of 'dual-boot' setup so that I can also play around with Vista anyway. Maybe try and get used to it. :)

I currently have two equal-sized partitions, one of which XP is installed on - and I'm now looking to install Vista on the other one.

How exactly should I go about doing this? I don't want to go and screw things up, you see...

[Floris]

XP does not know about Vista, so won't dual boot with it.

Vista knows about XP and can dual boot with it.

So install xp first, then vista on top of it, it allows you to run it aside of eachother and you can use vista's bootloader to switch to xp instead of vista.

Since xp doesn't know vista you can't tell it afterwards to find vista and dual boot to it.

At least, that's what an employee of MS told me in a podcast.


I also always recommend if you don't go with a mac osx system to install xp first, then vista, and then linux.

Linux will be able to dual boot and let you switch between linux and another os, and the other os will be vista, which lets you switch between xp/vista.

[Creepshow]

Thanks for the reply Floris. Just to be totally clear; Since I already do have XP installed, I can just go ahead and install Vista as well?

[Thomas P]

Yes, just chose another (free) partition

[Creepshow]

Thanks Thomas and Floris for your help! :)

[Floris]

Free partition, or hard drive. With vista this really does not matter.

[Quillz]

Why don't you actually try Vista? Yes, it's different, but I find it vastly better in XP in every way.

[TomJames]

Why don't you actually try Vista? Yes, it's different, but I find it vastly better in XP in every way.

Same, with 2GB of RAM it runs games, Visual Studio, Cubase etc as well as XP. It's also much better in so many ways, it's almost painful going back to XP on other peoples machines :P

[Creepshow]

Wow, you two are certainly among the minority. At least from what I've seen and heard. I think Vista is awful.

[Creepshow]

Well, everything went smoothly, and I now have the best of both worlds. ;)

[Wayne Luke]

I am just curious here....

What exactly is "crappy" about Vista? What made you so angry that you need to make this change?

[Creepshow]

A search on Google for "Vista sucks" or similair will reveal all.

Mostly, it's the fact that it seems to be incompatible with a lot of programs.

[Wayne Luke]

I was looking more for your take on it.

I have been using Vista since October and have had problems with 2 applications under it... The first was SecureFX in that it kept crashing. I switched to Filezilla and no problems since. The second was with AVG Internet Protection. The firewall continually turned off network discovery and as such I can't use my printers which hook directly to a router so I replaced it with Norton. No problems since.

I have 5 computers. 3 with XP, 1 with Ubuntu and 1 with Vista. Vista is my primary computer and I use it for hours every day. I haven't updated the XP computers because their hardware is between 2 and 5 years old and simply not up to the task. The laptop runs Ubuntu because its low on RAM and that is a nice light interface. Looking to replace one of the XP machines with a Vista one in the next few months. Then that machine will have Ubuntu installed on it for a internal webserver.

I almost didn't upgrade to Vista because of all the "sucks" sites and opinions out there. However I decided to take the chance and try it for myself. For the first two weeks, I didn't like it as much and it take some retraining on how I did things. Now I wouldn't give it up. Linux still isn't suitable enough for my personal usage and Macintoshes are just not in the budget. So I can use a 7 year old OS or bite the bullet. XP provides plenty of aggravations on its own so I updated to Vista.

An OS is not something that can be reviewed in a couple of hours of fiddling with it. There are a lot of things within it that can affect your work. Took me three months to decide to upgrade to Vista. Took me over a year and 100 or so installs to settle on Ubuntu as a linux distribution.

[squall14716]

I've been using Vista since RC1 back in late 06. I don't see why people have so much hate about it - I've had better performance on Vista than I had on XP. The only real annoyance was UAC and that is easily switched off.

[TomJames]

I've been using Vista since RC1 back in late 06. I don't see why people have so much hate about it - I've had better performance on Vista than I had on XP. The only real annoyance was UAC and that is easily switched off.

Yeah, there seems to be a lot of FUD and ignorance on the internet about Vista :rolleyes:. UAC can be annoying but I've gotten into the habbit of installing some older programs to my user folder so I can open them without being asked to deny or allow all the time :P. Most new ones only ask for permission when installing as well which is good :).

[Quillz]

A search on Google for "Vista sucks" or similair will reveal all.

Mostly, it's the fact that it seems to be incompatible with a lot of programs.
"It seems to be" is not the same as "it is."

And most of those "Vista sucks" articles are written by "IT professionals" who've never even used Vista. It's just trendy to be on the anti-Microsoft bandwagon right now.

[Quillz]

Wow, you two are certainly among the minority. At least from what I've seen and heard. I think Vista is awful.
Actually, no, those who have some sort of personal vendetta against Vista are in an extremely vocal minority. I'd estimate that 90-95% of Vista users have absolutely no issues with it, just like those who run XP.

[Creepshow]

Well, I disagree with you, so let's agree to disagree. :)

And Vista IS incompatible with lots of programs.

[Jose Amaral Rego]

Actually, no, those who have some sort of personal vendetta against Vista are in an extremely vocal minority. I'd estimate that 90-95% of Vista users have absolutely no issues with it, just like those who run XP.

I think it is more of third party peripherals not having proper firmware for Vista or they do not want you to have older products. I will wait till 2010 to upgrade to beta Windows (7) or if I have to I might get Vista :(

Well, I disagree with you, so let's agree to disagree. :)

And Vista IS incompatible with lots of programs.

How is third party's software a Vista problem... I know you are going to get Windows (7) and somehow would want that as your third operating system added onto your computer...

[Joe Gronlund]

I will wait till 2010 to upgrade to beta Windows (7) or if I have to I might get Vista :(


With Windows Touch Technology , will be a fun beta for sure.. :)

[Wayne Luke]

Well, I disagree with you, so let's agree to disagree. :)

And Vista IS incompatible with lots of programs.
Why do you disgree though? I am genuinely curious as to what you find with Vista. Your complaints are vague.

Also what programs do you have problems with? Usually problems are a simple solution such as running them in an XP compatibility mode.

[Floris]

Why run them on vista in xp mode, if you can run them in xp .

[Wayne Luke]

Why run them on vista in xp mode, if you can run them in xp .

Because its a waste of time running two operating systems on a machine.

[ShadyNight]

I can say my largest complaint is the 3 or so popups asking me if I REALLY am sure I want to do something. PITA really. That, and the fact I had to install the wrong drivers for my printer just to get it to print. Still can't scan, fax or copy with the darned thing. :( And running the darned thing in "XP mode" didn't do a darned thing.

Other than that? Not a major difference than getting use to XP, just ... different.

[Andy Huang]

I came from Vista on an under powered machine (1.86Ghz centrino, 2GB ram, 128mb shared intel video chip) and pre-sp1 days, so my views might be biased / outdated. But from my experience, while Vista offered some improvements on security (UAC, and the USB memory encryption thing off of back of my hand), it tried to do too much eye candy and other non-essential things; which in turn made the system slow, and make my laptop fan spin nearly non-stop. Now that I'm on Ubuntu 7.10 (I should upgrade to 8.04 soon) I have none of that problem... in fact, I have several eye candy stuff running fine here, too. With Wine installed, I miss only a few games that doesn't run too well in Wine...

[Creepshow]

Because its a waste of time running two operating systems on a machine.

If it means you can use all your programs then I honestly don't see how it's a waste of time.

[Wayne Luke]

If it means you can use all your programs then I honestly don't see how it's a waste of time.

I can run all my programs on Vista though. This includes new Vista versions of favorites as well as old games and children's storybooks that I bought back in the early 90s when Windows 3.1 was popular.

As I said above, I have only had problems with two programs under Vista and they were easily replaced. Besides there is no DirectX 10 under XP and it makes for some nice games and effects.

But switching between OSes all the time takes time. XP takes 5 minutes to boot up. Vista takes 3 minutes (on my computer). That is 8 minutes of unproductivity every time you switch between the two.

[Creepshow]

Both OS's are loading really, REALLY fast on my system...