Windows XP & 7 Dual Boot

[coilaman]

I need a dual boot setup. I have a new 320 GB SATA hard drive and I need to replace an old 80 GB hard drive. I have a Windows XP Home disc that came with the machine and the Windows 7 Professional Upgrade disc. What do I need to do in order to have a painless dual boot setup. I want to be able to choose before the system starts booting. Please help and thank you very much for your time.

 

[Herr_Koos]

This link should sort you out fairly quickly. TIP: It is better to install XP first and then 7.

http://lifehacker.com/5126781/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-with-xp-or-vista

EDIT: Just out of interest, what do you need XP for? I also have a dual-boot setup, and in the 6 months since I installed 7, I've never had to boot XP. 7 does everything I need.

 

[coilaman]

This link should sort you out fairly quickly. TIP: It is better to install XP first and then 7.

http://lifehacker.com/5126781/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-with-xp-or-vista

EDIT: Just out of interest, what do you need XP for? I also have a dual-boot setup, and in the 6 months since I installed 7, I've never had to boot XP. 7 does everything I need.

I have Adobe CS2 set of applications and I heard it's not compatible with Windows 7. I know that Windows 7 Professional has the XP mode mode built in, but I heard people say the XP mode in Windows 7 has some bugs in it and they can't run some of their older applications that they had no problem running in XP. Is is true that XP mode is not very reliable or is it that people don't know what they are doing. Please tell me more about Windows 7 compatibility with older applications.

Thank you.

 

[Herr_Koos]

I can't comment on CS2 unfortunately; you could perhaps contact Adobe and confirm with them. In my experience, Windows 7 offers better compatibility for older software than most people think. I have used XP mode for some older applications at work, and it does the job quite well.

 

[nocheese]

I have Adobe CS2 set of applications and I heard it's not compatible with Windows 7. I know that Windows 7 Professional has the XP mode mode built in, but I heard people say the XP mode in Windows 7 has some bugs in it and they can't run some of their older applications that they had no problem running in XP. Is is true that XP mode is not very reliable or is it that people don't know what they are doing. Please tell me more about Windows 7 compatibility with older applications.

Thank you.

XP Mode is very reliable and one should evaluate it's suitability based on specific needs. "Some people having issues with their software" is not the same as you having an issue with what you need. It is a Virtual Machine of XP. It is using a real XP installation, it's just the hardware is virtualized rather than being bare metal.

 

[coilaman]

XP Mode is very reliable and one should evaluate it's suitability based on specific needs. "Some people having issues with their software" is not the same as you having an issue with what you need. It is a Virtual Machine of XP. It is using a real XP installation, it's just the hardware is virtualized rather than being bare metal.

Actually, after further research, I found out that the CPU also has to support virtualization in order for XP mode to work. My sister's CPU is a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 HT so no go for the XP mode within Windows 7. But I will do the dual boot setup and problem solved.

 

[coilaman]

Actually, this was only true at the very beginning of Windows 7 distribution, but Microsoft has since issued a new version of XP mode that supports any processor including Pentium 4.