How do I get the option on which O/S to boot? 3

[1quickdraw]

I recently purchased a new computer for work. It came with Vista Premium Home. I installed XP Pro and told the installation program to install all files in a folder called windows2 instead of windows (when asked by the installation program). I thought by default it would start up with the black screen giving me the option of which O/S to boot. This is not the case, it boots XP automatically. I am hopefull someone here can point me in the right direction of how I can accomplish this (ie get the choice of choosing which O/S to boot).

Thanks much.

S

 

[jamesbird]

Vista does strange things to the MBR (master boot record), there are posts about on how to set up dual boot Vista/ XP disks, but in the mean time, if the machine was Vista and now boots to XP you may be in with a chance.
Once in XP right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Start up and recovery. You should see an option 'time to display list of operating systems' if you're lucky the time'll be set to zero, and you'll be able to change it.
All the best
James

 

[wolluf]

It came with Vista Premium Home. I installed XP Pro

How did you install XP? Into the same partition as Vista? You didn't remove the vista installation?

I thought with Vista installed it won't allow XP to install - you have to remove the Vista partition first.

Although Vista's boot mechanism is different to previous versions of windows, the usual rule applies for dual booting using MS's boot manager - older o/s has to be installed first.

Not knowing what you've done or level of expertise, my dual boot advice is:-

1. Use a third party boot manager - I use

http://www.boot-us.com.

others like Xosl, boot-it.
2. Installations on separate hard drives if possible, otherwise primary partitions (not extended with logical drives).
3. Installations should be independent. If using different drives, install second o/s with first drive disconnected. If using separate partitions, need to hide the first partition when installing second (various apps can hide partitions - including boot-us).

If your machine had a single partition with Vista on it and only one hard drive, you really needed to either obtain second drive or shrink the vista partition to make room for XP (2nd drive far superior option).

If you can tell us how you installed XP, we may be able to help - though if Vista is gone, it will obviously need reinstalling/restoring from recovery disks/partition if you want dual boot.

PS. Have you considered using virtual machines - MS Virtual PC is free now.

 

[1quickdraw]

Thanks JamesBird. I will give this a look on Monday and see if this is the situation. Hopefully it is.

 

[linney]

This is a handy program to use when having Boot problems in Vista dual booting with XP. It can be run from XP and may correct the booting problem.

VistaBootPRO

http://www.vistabootpro.org/

Used EasyBCD

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

VistaBootPro is usually pretty good in handling this type of problem. Have you tried their Forum?

http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/index.php

Using VistaBootPro from both operating systems, run as Administrator in XP, or Elevated (right-click and Run As Administrator) in Vista.

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

 

[1quickdraw]

wolluf,
The system came with 1 H/D. Vista was pre installed and a recovery portion of the hard drive has Vista intiall factory recovery portion (which is partiotioned as D drive). I did not re-patition anything. I simply ran the XP pro cd on start up and follwed the instructions on screen. When asked if I wanted to store data in existing windows folder or use another, I created a new folder and called it windows2. At this juncture, XP boots as default. I have not been able to boot Vista since. I believe Vista is still there, But ??? As I have had no experience with Vista, I was not certain how to proceed so I did what I have done in the past with other PC's and presumed I would get a multiple O/S screen at start up. If the MBR has been changed, I will continue to use XP pro and not worry about Vista unless there is a fairly quick fix for the problem (if there is a problem). ANyway, thanks for the input and suggestions. I would not have the first idea how to use the ms virtual pc. I would like to know more about it though.

Thanks again. Your valuable advice is much appreciated.

 

[linney]

Virtual PC 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...3199-48a3-afa2-2dc0b40a73b6&displaylang=en&tm

http://robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html

Mini newsgroup FAQ for microsoft.public.virtualpc

http://vpc.visualwin.com/ngfaq.aspx

 

[wolluf]

1quickdraw - so it sounds like you've installed XP into same partition as Vista (which isn't a good idea for dual booting - so I wouldn't advise trying to create the boot menu with current configuration. Vista will still be there (in \windows), but both would be 'sharing' program files, and I'm not sure how the filestore permissions set by both o/s would affect each other. As I said - and links linney has given you, you really need to create a separate partition for each o/s. If you're happy using XP, I'd just continue as is - you could delete the \windows folder to regain space, and if you want Vista, could shrink partition later to make room for Vista. Or if you want Vista - again use the help linney has provided to re-establish Vista boot, then remove XP.