Installing Windows XP on Vista

With the majority of laptop and desktop manufacturers preloading their systems with Vista today, we are witnessing the end of the Windows XP era. Just like the extinction of previous operating systems, Windows XP has officially been laid to rest. The same will apply to Vista in the near future, but the march of time shouldn’t stop us from running whatever OS we want (as long as we own a legal licensed copy).

The problem here, as always, has been with the installation of an older operating system over a new one. In doing so, the existing bootloader is overwritten (in this case Vista's is overwritten by the older XP bootloader), making it impossible to boot into the newer OS.

To further complicate matters, editing the boot file isn’t the same as it used to be with XP, since Vista relies on multiple resources to boot, including Bcdedit and Bootmgr to name a few, rather than the simple 'boot.ini' file. This makes editing the bootloader a pretty complex task, since adding or removing entries can only be done via the command prompt.

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So if you have Vista preinstalled and you really want to dual boot it with XP, one tool you can use is VistaBootPro, which you can downloaded from www.vistabootpro.org. Back up your files before starting, and follow these simple steps.

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Resizing the Partition(s) to make way for Windows XP

STEP 1: Resizing the partition

Right-click on My Computer, select 'Manage', and then click 'Disk Management' in the left pane. Now select the drive that you want to resize. Right-click on it and select 'Shrink Volume' from the context menu.

STEP 2: Allocating space for Windows XP

Enter the amount of space that is required for installing Windows XP. An average of 10 GB should suffice. By default Vista allocates a fixed amount of space depending on your drive's total capacity.

STEP 3: Creating a new volume

Once you have shrunk or resized the partition, an unallocated area will be seen, shaded in grey. Right-click on this area, select 'New Simple Volume', and follow the steps thereafter.

STEP 4: Renaming and formatting the volume

You would then need to format the new volume using the NTFS file system and rename it to “Windows XP”. Check the 'Quick format' option and click on 'Next'. Then install XP on this partition by booting from the Windows XP CD.

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Dual Booting Two Operating Systems

STEP 1: Backing up Vista's BCD profile

Install VistaBootPro (.NET v2.0 Framework required). On starting the application you will be redirected to the Backup/Restore Center. Click on 'Browse' and create a backup of your current BCD profiles.

STEP 2: Viewing the current BCD profile

This is what your BCD registry should look like on the first run. You can either get a detailed report of the settings or just a general overview. No editing can be done on this page.

STEP 3: Re-installing the Vista bootloader

Click on the 'System Bootloader' option, select 'Windows Vista Bootloader' and under 'System Bootloader Install Options', select 'All Drives'. Click 'Install Bootloader' to activate Vista.

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STEP 4: Scanning for previous version of Windows

You can choose to manually add the OS entries or simply run the diagnostic tool by selecting 'Diagnostics' and then clicking on 'Run Diagnostics'. The tool will automatically add the required entries.

STEP 5: Managing multiple OSs

Click on 'Manage BCD OS Entries'. Rename the OS by checking 'Rename OS Entry'. You can also change the boot drive (not recommended) as well as add new OS entries manually. Finally, click 'Apply Updates' and restart.

The final boot screen

If everything works as planned, the Windows Boot Manager menu will show options for booting into Vista and XP. You should get a display with a menu screen similar to the one shown here.

Your new dual boot PC

It would be advisable to create a separate partition for storing your important documents, email, music, movies and so on, rather than storing them on the drive where the operating system resides. This eliminates the threat of accidentally deleting important system fi les and also prevents fragmentation of the boot partition.

While Vista can resize your hard drive partitions, it still has limitations. EASEUS Partition Manager is a free partitioning utility which allows you to resize your partitions as per your requirements. Get it from our downloads section .