thinking of dual-booting win7 and XP

RolandIRL

hi all,
when my warranty expires on my dell laptop, i was thinking of installing XP on the laptop, which already has win7 on it. i want to do this so i'll be able to play older games on my laptop that don't work with 7.
few questions on the process
i take that i'd need to create a partition on my hard drive to do this. what size would you recommend the partition would need to be?
would the fact that i'd install 32-bit XP on a 64-bit machine make any difference to games that only support 32-bit, that is does the game need to run on a 32-bit OS or a 32-bit machine?
any other suggestions on what to do would be helpful
thanks

Lab_Mouse

What version of win 7 have you got.Think pro comes with a virtual xp machine(ultimate does for sure).Its free you just have to download it off micro$oft.

slowlydownwards

Win xp will overwrite MBR and it's a bit of a headache to get it to display options of booting into win7 or xp afterwards. EasyBCD may be able to fix it, not sure.

Things get super smooth though if you were to install xp first and win7 second. Win7 installation will recognize that there is an older version of win already installed and will present you with the option to boot into it.

3-4 Gb is theoretically enough for win xp, but then you'll be installing programs and games onto that partition, so...

zodac

i take that i'd need to create a partition on my hard drive to do this. what size would you recommend the partition would need to be?
would the fact that i'd install 32-bit XP on a 64-bit machine make any difference to games that only support 32-bit, that is does the game need to run on a 32-bit OS or a 32-bit machine?
any other suggestions on what to do would be helpful
thanks
You would need to make a seperate partition to install XP onto. If you're installing XP after Win7, you probably won't get an option to boot into Win7 anymore. You'll need to use something like EasyBCD (Make a new Vista boot option; works perfectly fine for Win7)

Installing 32-bit onto a 64-bit CPU is fine; the games depend on the OS in this case.

RolandIRL

Think pro comes with a virtual xp machine(ultimate does for sure).

The problem with the VM is that it doesn't have access to the graphics card so i can't play games on it. i bought a win7 pro laptop with this intention but it turned out VM's can't play games.

i don't think i have the install disc for win7. it's dell and besides i'm not going to go to the hassle of reinstalling the OS just for a few old games.

If you're installing XP after Win7, you probably won't get an option to boot into Win7 anymore.

that's what i will be doing, but if i use easyBCD it'll give me the option of choosing the OS on startup, will it?

thanks for the replies

Lab_Mouse

whiteman19 wrote: »

The problem with the VM is that it doesn't have access to the graphics card so i can't play games on it.

My bad.Actually I was hoping to run a few old games that way,guess I cant now!Stupid micro$oft!

RolandIRL

i was trying to run total annihilation on the VM with the expansions cos they're incompatiable with 64-bit OS, but an error just came up. can't remeber what it said but the VM help said that XP mode is for sue with business applications, and not any software that requires graphics cards eg games.

i was just wondering whether any old games would be able to work on ubuntu or would they be incompatible?

Lab_Mouse

[QUOTE=whiteman19;64474422
i was just wondering whether any old games would be able to work on ubuntu or would they be incompatible?[/QUOTE]

Not unless they are linux versions of the games.

zodac

whiteman19 wrote: »

i was just wondering whether any old games would be able to work on ubuntu or would they be incompatible?

You could use Wine, though it wouldn't perform as well as Windows for gaming.

Snowbat

Many Windows benchmarks run faster in Wine than in Windows XP:
http://wiki.winehq.org/BenchMark-0.9.5

Check the app database for reports of the games you want to run:
http://appdb.winehq.org/

matt-dublin

Why not just use windows xp mode??

cpu.dude

slowlydownwards wrote: »

Win xp will overwrite MBR and it's a bit of a headache to get it to display options of booting into win7 or xp afterwards. EasyBCD may be able to fix it, not sure.

Things get super smooth though if you were to install xp first and win7 second. Win7 installation will recognize that there is an older version of win already installed and will present you with the option to boot into it.

3-4 Gb is theoretically enough for win xp, but then you'll be installing programs and games onto that partition, so...

SD is correct, you need to start with XP and then install Windows 7. May I suggest.

> Backup everything
> Format the laptop
> Partition your drive 1-30GB / 2- 30GB / 3-Rest of GB
> Install XP 64-bit on Partition 1, get all drivers installed, label it Windows XP.
> Install Win 7 64-bit on Partition 2, get all drivers installed, label it Windows 7.
> Assign Partition 3 as your Documents Folder in XP and 7 (so both can access it).
> Use Easy BCD to rename, edit or add more options to your Bootloaders.
> All done!

RolandIRL

SD is correct, you need to start with XP and then install Windows 7. May I suggest.

> Backup everything
> Format the laptop
> Partition your drive 1-30GB / 2- 30GB / 3-Rest of GB
> Install XP 64-bit on Partition 1, get all drivers installed, label it Windows XP.
> Install Win 7 64-bit on Partition 2, get all drivers installed, label it Windows 7.
> Assign Partition 3 as your Documents Folder in XP and 7 (so both can access it).
> Use Easy BCD to rename, edit or add more options to your Bootloaders.
> All done!

thanks cpu.dude
i don't have a 64-bit XP disc though, only 32-bit (the old games don't support 64-bit like Totala). besides as mentioned before, i'm not going to re-install win7 - just too much hassle. i'd just prefer to be able to partition the drive, install XP, do that EasyBCD thing, and play games. but if it's better to install XP first, then 7, i think i'll just leave it.
i didn't buy the disc for win7 installation. mine's a dell laptop and (someone correct me if i'm wrong) but they don't give the install disc for OS's with new systems, just a system repair disc.
has anyone who has installed xp after 7 and using easyBCD had any problems doing this?

cpu.dude

whiteman19 wrote: »

thanks cpu.dude
i don't have a 64-bit XP disc though, only 32-bit (the old games don't support 64-bit like Totala). besides as mentioned before, i'm not going to re-install win7 - just too much hassle. i'd just prefer to be able to partition the drive, install XP, do that EasyBCD thing, and play games. but if it's better to install XP first, then 7, i think i'll just leave it.
i didn't buy the disc for win7 installation. mine's a dell laptop and (someone correct me if i'm wrong) but they don't give the install disc for OS's with new systems, just a system repair disc.
has anyone who has installed xp after 7 and using easyBCD had any problems doing this?

Although it can be troublesome (mainly becase XP doesn't natively support S-ATA), here's a guide.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html

RolandIRL

Although it can be troublesome (mainly becase XP doesn't natively support S-ATA),

what problems could i expect to encounter?
could i get drivers for SATAII

cpu.dude

whiteman19 wrote: »

what problems could i expect to encounter?
could i get drivers for SATAII

Yes you can slipstream S-ATA drivers to an XP CD. See below for more...

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA-Without-a-Floppy-F6-47807.shtml

kenon

The windows 7 disc has an option to fix any boot problems you have (like the ones you will get if you install XP after 7).

Done it loads of times. EasyBCD can then easily tweak any other boot stuff you want rather than using an awkward command-line interface.