Number 292 - September 2007

How to Dual Boot Windows XP & Windows Vista
by Brian K. Lewis, Ph.D.*, Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
If you are running a computer with the Windows XP operating system (OS) and would like to try Vista without removing XP, then a dual-boot system might be what you are looking for. For those to whom the term dual-boot is unfamiliar, let me say that this is a method of putting both Windows XP and Windows Vista on your computer. Then when you start the computer you will see a menu that allows you to choose which OS you want to run. The downside to this is that to change the OS you have to reboot the computer. The positive side is that you can install more than two operating systems and select which to run at boot time. For example you might have XP, Vista and one or two Linux OS's on your computer. The main requirement for this multiple OS setup is that you have adequate hard drive space and the required computer power to run Vista.    To begin the process of setting up a dual-boot system, the first thing is to back up your hard drive to either an external drive or some other media. Don't just back it up to a partition on your current hard drive. If something goes awry with the dual-boot installation you want to be able to restore the complete working system you started with. Don't depend on the Windows System Restore to do this for you. System Restore does not save your applications or data, just the Windows system files. So go do a complete drive backup now!    O.K., now for the next step. Vista needs to be installed in it's own partition on your hard drive. This is another term that needs some explanation. Partitioning a hard drive means to divide the drive into separate segments or compartments. When this is done Windows looks at these partitions as being separate drives and each will have their own drive letter. In the usual setup on a personal computer there is one main partition which contains the bootable code for the OS. What we want to do is to have two partitions, each with their own boot code. The software in Windows XP that can partition a hard drive (FDISK) is not usable for this process since it would wipe out all the information on the disk if we used it to repartition our drive. There are several options for partitioning a drive without affecting the data. One is to download an application called "GPartd". This is an free, open-source application that can resize partitions without destroying any data on the drive. You can get GPartd from this location: . There is another free alternative to using GPartd. That is to use DiskPart which is included in the Vista CD. There are also commercial software partitioning programs such as Acronis Disk Director and Paragon Partition Manager. Whatever method you use to partition your hard drive you need to setup a minimum of 10 GB (gigabytes) for use by Vista. Since Vista can read and write to the NTFS files on your primary partition it really isn't necessary to allocate space for applications and data on the Vista partition.    To use GPartd to create the new partition you will need to boot from the CD you created from the downloaded ISO file. Your CD creating software probably has a selection on the file menu to create a CD from an ISO file. You can not just copy the ISO file to a CD. You have to use the menu selection to extract the files from the ISO file and create a bootable CD. When GPartd runs it will bring up window showing the current partitions on your hard drive. Your XP partition will probably be identified as something like /device/hda1. With this selected, you then click on Resize/Move. Using the slider reduce the Windows XP partition to allow at least 10 GB for the new partition. The change will only be made when you click on Apply. When completed you can remove the GPartd disk, replace it with the Vista CD and then reboot the computer.    If you prefer to use DiskPart instead of GPartd, then you need to press Shift+F10 when you are in the Vista Product Key page. This should bring up a command window where you need to enter specific commands to repartition the drive. The first command is "List Volume". Enter this without the quotes. This should list all the partitions (volumes) on your drive. The main Windows XP volume should be "volume 0". Then type in "Select Volume 0", again without quotes. Finally, type in "Shrink". This will reduce the primary volume by about 50%. Although that may be more space than Vista really needs, this is the only selection you have with DiskPart. In my opinion, GPartd is a much better choice for partitioning your hard drive. I won't cover the instructions for any of the commercial software as they have rather detailed instructions on how to partition a drive.	You do not need to format the partition you have made for Vista. During the installation Vista will format this partition. So the next step is the actual installation of Vista. It is much simpler if you have the full version of Vista, not the upgrade. You can start the installation by running it from the CD after having booted into XP. If you do that you must tell Vista not to install as an upgrade. You can start the install by booting from the Vista CD. In either case you have to select the partition, usually identified as unallocated space, that you want Vista to use. If you have the Vista upgrade version, it can be installed as a dual-boot to a separate partition. However, the process is more involved and you have to install Vista twice. For more details on this process you need to go to . The lead article in this issue of the Windows Secrets Newsletterr details the process. This article assumes that you are making a clean install of Vista and that it is the only OS on the computer. Therefore it doesn't contain one detail. That is that you will need to select the partition that you created for this Vista installation. You can do that by selecting a "Custom Install" when you start. Once that is done you can follow the instructions for the double installation of Vista.    After the installation is complete, reboot your computer and you will be greeted with a text menu showing two choices: 1, "Windows Vista" and 2, "An earlier version of Windows". You can change the wording of this second option if you wish to do so. In Windows XP modifying the boot loader menu was a simple operation using Notepad. In Vista, changing the boot loader menu requires the use of BCDEdit. To use this application you must open a command window with administrative privileges. That means you will need the Administrator password. BCDEdit is a pure command line driven application so it is not the easiest thing to use. You can get a free program from this site: . This is called EasyBCD and it has a graphical interface.    To change the boot menu wording go to "Configure Boot". You will see the entries for both Vista and XP. Simply change the entry "An earlier version of Windows" to Windows XP. Then click on "Save Settings" and reboot the computer. The boot menu should show the changes you have made. Another advantage to using EasyBCD is that it can restore the Windows XP boot.ini file if you should decide that you don't want to keep Vista. Run EasyBCD and go to "Manage Bootloader" and select "Uninstall Vista Bootloader". Then you need to select "Write MBR". That will rewrite the Master Boot Record to allow booting directly into XP. After you reboot you can remove the Vista partition with GPartd and extend the XP partition to its original size.    If you want more details or wish to see screen shots of the processes used for setting up a dual-boot system, I recommend you visit either or both of these locations: or. Both of these sites have good screen shots of the entire process.    There is an alternative to using a dual-boot system and that is running Windows Vista in a "virtual computer". This allows you to shift from one OS to another using just a few keystrokes. Microsoft provides free software which can be installed on your computer to do this. However, if you are running XP Home, it is not supported. You must have Windows 2000 or Windows XP professional installed to run Microsoft's Virtual PC system. For more information on this software go to: .    *Dr. Lewis is a former university & medical school professor. He has been working with personal computers for more than thirty years. He can be reached via e-mail at bwsail@yahoo.com.    Copyright 2007. This article is from the July 2007 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication.
Number 292 - September 2007