Possible to Dual boot Vista and XP w/ this?

I guess no one really has an answer??

I read somewhere of people having problems with dual boot systems --- but really dont know for sure --- perhaps an opinion from a couple people who have done it might be more valuable.

A better alternative might be to try vista in vpc 2007 using xp as a host--- if you have hardware virtualization it might run quite fast (I currently run xp in vpc 2007 with xp as host and do notice any difference in speed and I dont have hardware virtualization--- but vista might prove quite different (slower).

Vpc 2007 is free so there is no charge to try other than the purchase of vista --- would allow you more resources for xp --- might be a better alternative but also once you activate vista in vpc 2007 --- you might not be able use it in a physical machine --- but still would be able to try as you have 30 days before vista must be activated.

Hope this helps

wow, thanks for the reply. So what exactly is vpc2007? Like, is it just basically still running windows XP, yet it LOOKS like Vista? And if that's the case, what would that technically make my OS as far as driver support? And lastly, does it support dualcore operation better than Home does? Thanks again

vpc 2007 is from microsoft and is really called virtual pc 2007 --- it creates what is called a virtual pc or virtual machine under your physical machine. Virtual pc emulates an actual computer under your host machine (physical machine) so you can run alternative or legacy os's. You will actually see another pc bios booting up (in another window in your host --- you can switch this to full screen) when you load a virtual machine --- its quite a neat concept --- you have to load your operating system on it just like you would under a physical machine -- it does nothing to your host machine and remains completely independent. Thus, your physical machine can remain xp while vista is run in a virtual machine as a guest operating system in a virtual machine.

I dont know the actual website address for virtual pc 2007 --- but google search will find it --- its a free microsoft piece of software --- and more informations can be found on it there (it might be rather lengthy for me to try to discuss it in full detail here --- but once you get use to it --- is quite easy to use --- and has some advantages to physical machines as you can undo drives so as to restore the pc to its original state if you want to experiment with different configurations.

oh wow, that's pretty tight. I was looking at that all different from what it was xD. So basically it's about the same thing as having a dual boot system, though not actually so. I'll really have to look into this, as confusing as it seems. But ya, I'll def give it a try. Thanks!

wait.. so I'm confused, would I download the 32bit setup .exe or the 64bit .exe for vpc? I'm running the main server off of Windows XP (at least for now) and using Vista as the guest. The part where I'm confused is I have a x64 processor, and I know the version of Vista I'm using supports x64, but XP home doesn't.. Any idea? Thanks again

EDIT: srry bout double post :x Meant to edit this on the tial end of the last one.

I would think you would want to use the x64 version as your computer and version of vista is 64---- but not absolutely sure on this without actually researching it. --- There should vpc 2007 forum in microsoft site that would be able to help you on this ---- you can always try to down load it and see what happens as it would seem to me that vpc 2007 64 version would not run at all if there was problem with your pc running that version --- but this is just guess on my part. Microsoft Vpc Forum might be best way to confirm this.

Sorry I couldnt be more help. Good luck to you- hope everything works out.

hah, you've helped more than enough. I'll try their forums. Thanks  

Did find following on microsoft dowload site:

"Choose the correct architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) for your computer and download the appropriate Setup.exe file".

Thus, it would appear to me since your computer has a 64 bit architecture --- you would want 64 bit version --- but sometimes microsoft can be somewhat confusing as to what things really mean and hope this is not one of those things. In any event, since your version of vista is 64 bit --- it would seem you would have to have the 64 bit version --- not sure on this ---- this is just assumption on my part.

hah, I'll give it a try anyway. What's the worst that can happen, it won't work? No biggie really..

Do you happen to know a good tutorial somewhere? I mean it's not hard to find one, but didn't know if there was one in particular that you know of that is really straightforward and easy to follow?

I really not sure on tuturial -- but vpc does have an extensive help menu --- and in reality --- once you get use to it --- it really is a lot like using any other physical pc ---- you will have to load vista on just as you would a regular pc --- and know that vpc tools will be something you will want to load as it will deffinitely increase the performance ---- but this is something you load on after you have your virtual machine running with vista installed --- Only other recommendation I would give is not to activate vista until 30 days ---- this will allow you to make configuation changes to your virtual vista machine without causing reactivation (note --- you might want to increase ram or increase hard drive space ---- etc --- also you may find it just runs to slow in virtual machine and therefore want it installed on physical machine --- dont know what your ram is --- but if 1 gig --- you may want to upgrade to 2 gigs if you find vpc 2007 works for you as this will increase performance (if you have 1 gig presently --- this will be reduced as vpc will take up memory --- this would cause to go below the 1 gig minimum which might cause performance problems.

Suggest you go to vpc forum if you run into trouble or need additional help as there is a lot of expertise there --- beyond what I can give.

Would love to here how it goes as I have free upgrade path to vista which is coming in mail and going to try to run vista also in vpc 2007--- currently only use xp in vpc 2007.