Dual Boot XP 32-bit and 7 64-bit

dotsman

Hi there, just wondering if anyone has experience of this yet.

I currently have Windows XP Pro (32-bit) and is fully licensed (not an upgrade).
I am currently looking to purchase Windows 7 Home Premium, and install the 64-bit version, but before I buy, I just want to check a few things:

I currently have my 2 physical drives (both 1TB) partitioned into several logical drives with Partition Magic 8. From various articles on the internet, I can see that Partition Magic 8 has issues with both Vista and 7 (as is no longer supported). I assume that this just means that I won't be able to continue to manage my partitions with this software, but that existing partitions will work fine. Is this correct (or will my existing partitions be corrupted under Windows 7)?

For the first few months, I intend to dual-boot between the 2, as I imagine that I will probably have 1 or 2 apps/games that are incompatible and therefore will need to revert to XP from time to time. If I create an empty partition for Windows 7 to install to, does it have to be at the start of the physical drive, and if so, what affect could this have on my XP partition (as this will no longer be a t the start of the physical drive?

With regard licensing, I would hope to only have to buy the Upgrade version of Windows 7. However, will this complain that I am already using the key for the XP installation (even though it is on the same computer). If so, will it actually prevent me from installing?

Fysh

Re: licensing - as far as I understand it you'll have to buy a full licence for Windows 7 if you plan on keeping your existing installation of XP bootable.

That being said, I've got XP Pro 32-bit dual-booting with 7 Pro 64-bit and it's pretty painless to set up. The physical location of the actual partition shouldn't cause any problems - that being said, if your motherboard lets you manually select which hard drive to boot from you could install Win7 on a separate physical drive to XP (disconnect the XP hard drive when you do it) and then just use your motherboard boot manager to select which drive (and thus which OS) to boot.

dotsman

Fysh wrote: »

Re: licensing - as far as I understand it you'll have to buy a full licence for Windows 7 if you plan on keeping your existing installation of XP bootable.

That being said, I've got XP Pro 32-bit dual-booting with 7 Pro 64-bit and it's pretty painless to set up. The physical location of the actual partition shouldn't cause any problems - that being said, if your motherboard lets you manually select which hard drive to boot from you could install Win7 on a separate physical drive to XP (disconnect the XP hard drive when you do it) and then just use your motherboard boot manager to select which drive (and thus which OS) to boot.

Yeah was thinking that creating the partition on the second physical drive could get around the issue. Cheers

On the issue of the licensing, it's only €30 more for the full version (on Amazon), so I don't mind paying it if necessary (if it avoids headaches). But if it's only on moral grounds as to which licence to pay for, I would argue that, by the "spirit of the law", I only need the upgrade, as I very much only want to have 1 OS (and have everything on that), and would only intend using the XP as a workaround until such time as everything is Win 7 compatible!

In fact, MS should be giving me a further discount due to the headache of having to dual boot just to get around their compatibility issues!:D

Fysh

If you're seriously concerned about the compatibility issues you could go for Win7 Pro and use the XP Mode instead (though you'll need to check your hardware meets the requirements first).

dotsman

Fysh wrote: »

If you're seriously concerned about the compatibility issues you could go for Win7 Pro and use the XP Mode instead (though you'll need to check your hardware meets the requirements first).

Hardware does, but from what I've heard about the XP-mode, it doesn't work at all with games (which I assume will be the most likely to have issues with Windows 7).

Fysh

dotsman wrote: »

Hardware does, but from what I've heard about the XP-mode, it doesn't work at all with games (which I assume will be the most likely to have issues with Windows 7).

Hmmm, that's interesting - haven't tried it at home as my processor doesn't support it, but I could try and check it out on my work machine. Any games in particular you're concerned about?

DarrenMSP

I've not encountered any issue with XPmode and games. Its XP running as a VM in Windows 7, so anything that runs on XP will run in XPmode. The only issue could be frame rate but if your got powerful hardware you shouldn't have any issues!

Fyish asked the right question though, what games are you worried about?!

dotsman

Fysh wrote: »

Hmmm, that's interesting - haven't tried it at home as my processor doesn't support it, but I could try and check it out on my work machine. Any games in particular you're concerned about?

DarrenMSP wrote: »

I've not encountered any issue with XPmode and games. Its XP running as a VM in Windows 7, so anything that runs on XP will run in XPmode. The only issue could be frame rate but if your got powerful hardware you shouldn't have any issues!

Fyish asked the right question though, what games are you worried about?!

There's probably no one game in particular that concerns me. But to give an example - due to this weekend's weather, I spent most of the last 2 days playing Ultimate Soccer Manager 98! I've also had plenty of issues playing old games like Frontier, Transport Tycoon, Railroad Tycoon 2 etc on XP. Fortunately, people have created patches, or workarounds on-line for these games (as, in most cases the publishers no longer exist!). But it did take quiet a while for these workarounds to appear. I remember when XP first came out, I kept my old win98 machine lying around for a year or 2 just in the off chance that I wanted to play them!

To be honest, I'd have a collection of games of my favourite games, from DOS games al the way through to modern gaming. Obviously, modern games will work (with patches quickly available for any issues).

From what I've heard regarding the xpmode, the problem seems to be the graphics card, and that the xpmode won't have access to it. Obviously that's fine for the very old games (pre-dedicated graphics card era), but games from a few years back could have issues.

There's plenty of people complaining online about this (and explaining that XPmode is only included with the pro/ultimate versions as it's only intended for business apps that don't require intensive graphics etc).

http://forums.techarena.in/video-games/1237364.htm
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprovirt/thread/322b4b7a-7871-4d6a-a0a4-cb36f97fb910
http://www.sevenforums.com/virtualization/46898-can-i-run-older-game-xp-mode.html

My machine is top spec (i7 860, 4GB RAM, 8800 GTX).

DarrenMSP

Well I ran C&C Tib sun and Red Alert 2 in XP mode and it was fine.

With specs like that, I wouldn't see any issues with games that have such little GPU requirements.

I don't really play old 98 games though. So can't comment on them.

You could try a install of Windows 7 and XPM then if it doesn't work partition and install XP?

dotsman

DarrenMSP wrote: »

Well I ran C&C Tib sun and Red Alert 2 in XP mode and it was fine.

With specs like that, I wouldn't see any issues with games that have such little GPU requirements.

I don't really play old 98 games though. So can't comment on them.

You could try a install of Windows 7 and XPM then if it doesn't work partition and install XP?

Yeah, I'm probably worrying about nothing. It's just more, from experience, I've always had my old PC/OS to fall back on for the 1 or 2 problems I've had every time I upgraded windows.

Then it's the whole issue of what version of Win7 to get. Obviously, I don't want to pay more than I have to. But at the same time, I don't want to pay for whatever version, and then realise that I should have bought a "better" version (ie "full premium" or "full professional/Ultimate").

I don't know. I think I might go for the Full Premium (to play it safe with the licensing) and dual boot with XP for a while. Then, in time, I can use the "anytime upgrade" to move to Pro/ultimate if needed.