X P Vista duel boot help please.

[tricky trees]

Hi.
So i just bought a 8800gt to upgrade from my 7900gs with the aim to playing Crysis as best i can. Obviously i need to use Vista to do this but don't want to sack off XP yet so i was thinking of duel booting with Vista 32 bit as i only have 2 gig of RAM. Now i've never done this before so i was after some advice.
Firstly, Is it as simple as putting in the DVD and getting a duel boot installation option?
Second, I have 2 hard drives so can i just install it to the dive that doesn't have XP on, or do i have to reformat it first?
Third, Will Vista only see programs installed under it or will it still see existing programs previously installed?
Finally, Is it worth the hassle or am i digging myself a hole of eternal nightmares doing this?
Thanks for your help in advance.
Marcus.

 

[Scotteq]

If you're only doing this to use DX10 with Crysis: You do NOT need Vista, so save your money. And if you are aiming at installing Vista on a system more than a couple years old, you are asking for a LOT of headaches.


Your 8800GT will run perfectly well on XP.

 

[tricky trees]

It's not only for Crysis. The main reason yes but i wouldn't mind taking a look at it anyway. My system is an E6400@3gig. Only a year old if that. Also i'm in Thailand so it's not going to cost me anything to buy Vista so the cash isn't an issue. Still a bad idea?

 

[Madrox]

Dual booting is easy. For you there are 2 options.

Option 1) Keep your current Installation of XP. Reformat your second HDD and install Vista to it and keep them separate.

Option 2) Reformat your main drive (depending on whats on the second you might want to do that one also) and then make 3 partitions, il give you an example:

EX: assuming you have at least a 120GB HDD for your main drive, you take it and make it into 3 partitions. XP-20-30GB, Vista 30-40GB & 50-70GB for games and Apps and so on. (some apps can be installed to a HDD and used through both OS's)

You don't really need more than 30GB for XP and 40 for Vista.

Now for installing the OS's, YOU HAVE TO INSTALL XP FIRST! on the first partition.
Someone might try to say otherwise, but iv tried and it doesn't go well.
Then install Vista on the next partition.

Reboot and before it would normally load into the OS, it will ask you what OS you want to load into "Earlier version of Windows" or "Windows Vista"

 

[tricky trees]

Nice one for that Madrox. I think i'll take your advice and reformat my XP drive and put them both on there. Seem tidier than having two OP's on different HD's.