First time setting up a dual boot

[Julian4145]

Hello all,

I've never set up a dual boot before. I just finished setting up a dual boot with Win XP and Win 2000 and everything works fine but I have what probably are some fairly simple questions.

1. Is it necessary to install all the various drivers on both Windows Installations? What about software programs such as Office 2000, Anti-Virus software, Instant Messenger, etc..?

2. Is it possible to do a tri boot? I left room on my HD with the intent of eventually running Linux. Is this something I can do and if I did, would it cause any issues?

Thanks

Julian

 

[linney]

Think of your dual boot as two separate computers, treat it as such when it comes to installing any software. It's a lot less confusing or prone to crashes this way.

You can install as many operating systems in a multi boot situation as you like. Whether they can talk to each other depends on your file system.

Linux help here.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q="install+linux+with+windows+xp"

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...tall+linux+with+windows+xp&btnG=Google+Search

 

[Julian4145]

Thanks.

 

[Julian4145]

Linney,
Can you explain a little further about the the various OS's talking to each other depending on the file system? I appreciate the help.

Julian

 

[Snickle]

The oldest Operating System has to be installed first, the newest OS goes on last, creates the proper boot.ini file to get the menu showing all the OSes.

Some pages to read:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q306559

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q289283

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q153762

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/russel/september10.asp

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q232123

http://www.smartcomputing.com/edito...cles/2002/s1303/32s03/32s03.asp&guid=1aumk800

Keep in mind that if you want both Win9x/ME and Win 2000/XP Operating Systems to have access to both partitions/drives, keep the formatting at FAT32 because Win9x/ME can't 'see'/work with NTFS but WinXP [and Win2000] can use both types formatting. Both Win2000 and WinXP use NTFS 5, FAT16, and FAT32, WinNT 4 uses NTFS 4 and FAT16 but not FAT32.

Also, WinXP can't CREATE FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB but can work with them so use the Win98 boot disk for partitioning and formatting the drive.

As noted in the mentioned pages, the newest OS goes on last.

 

[Julian4145]

Thanks for the info Berton, much appreciated.

 

[wolluf]

Linux generally uses ext2 filestore I think - which you can't read from 2k or XP. Linux usually can read fat32 - and some of the newer distributions also read ntfs.

Be careful with boot management if you install Linux - usually comes with lilo or grub or its own boot manager (have a read first).

Finally - I always put any flavour of windows on its own Primary partition with its own boot sector files on said partition. This makes them all independent (using a 3rd party boot manager -

http://www.boot-us.com

is my choice). When you dual boot using the nt/2k/XP boot loader, just one boot sector (on the C: drive) is used - so if that is damaged, both/all o/s systems can't boot. Also, second windows o/s installed tends to get put on extended partition unless you manually set up a primary partition beforehand (I've had some bad experiences losing extended partitions - which is why I won't use them).