Windows XP After Windows Vista

[Housam]

I want to have both Windows Vista and Windows XP installed on my Laptop; and due to my recovery DVD of Windows Vista I cannot install Windows Vista after Windows XP and if I install Windows XP after Windows Vista, the boot will be only to Windows XP.
So how can I fix the boot to have the boot menu for both?
But remember Windows Vista installed first then Windows XP.
Thanks.

 

[ChinoNYC]

Do you have Vista and XP on the same partition or are they on two separate partitions?? In either case, because your copy of Vista is most likely a factory image that is stored on the recovery DVD, if you install XP on any partition, XP overwrites some of the files on the Vista partition making it somewhat unusable and therefore you would need to reinstall Vista again (which would completely erase the existing partitions and force a complete reinstall) or use the "sfc /scannow" command from the WIndows -> Run... menu in Vista.

To use XP as your default partition, you would need to untick the read-only attribute from the BOOT.INI file from the C: partition. You will have to change the setting to show protected system files from WIndows Explorer. Open BOOT.INI in Notepad, then under default, change it to

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\whatever directory you chose XP to be installed at

I hope this helps somewhat...

 

[gbhall]

In general, you cannot boot Vista from a boot that starts XP, because Vista startup files are completely different (ChinoNYC is not corrrect on that). As you appear to know, Vista installed after XP will offer a dual boot automatically. There are ways to install XP after Vista and recover the original Vista boot process, modify it to include XP and Robert is your father's brother. BUT you have to have separate partitions. See here

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm

or here

http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/about88231.html

please check these thoroughly to ensure you do not need the Vista full install media at any point....also ensure your laptop has support for XP (drivers etc).

 

[ChinoNYC]

I'm not much of a Vista supporter, so my fault in that regard. I'm still tri-booting off of Win 98SE, 2000 Server, and XP Pro.