[cube101]

Hi there,
Im looking to buy a new system quad core with 4Gig Ram (I do alot of 3D work) and am thinking of getting it with Vista 64Bit installed (I mainly use 3DS Max which has a 64bit version) BUT i would then like to be able to dual boot this with XP 32bit Pro for all my legacy software, is this possible? I am going to get 2 SATA drives so can i put one on one drive and the other on another? Would this be easier if i went with XP 64 bit and XP 32 bit instead of Vista?
Any help greatly appreciated!!
Steve

[DaveBurnett]

Apart from the boot code, the two should be totally independent so it doesn't matter how you mix OS's

[davehc]

Your last suggested combination is what I mainlu use. This gives you the best of both worlds. You can experiment with 64 bit (particularly divers) in XP, which is now a seasoned program, and decide later if you want to move over to Vista 64Bit, which is still updating drivers and functions (it'll get there in the end!)
Why not triple boot?

[jonmcc33]

Originally Posted by cube101

Hi there,
Im looking to buy a new system quad core with 4Gig Ram (I do alot of 3D work) and am thinking of getting it with Vista 64Bit installed (I mainly use 3DS Max which has a 64bit version) BUT i would then like to be able to dual boot this with XP 32bit Pro for all my legacy software, is this possible? I am going to get 2 SATA drives so can i put one on one drive and the other on another? Would this be easier if i went with XP 64 bit and XP 32 bit instead of Vista?
Any help greatly appreciated!!
Steve

No need to dual boot. If you are greatly concerned about legacy software then use VirtualPC and load your Windows XP into that.

[TechB]

I use Vista x64 and would never go back to either XP or Vista x86. The multi-tasking capabilities are much better. Vista makes better use of multi core CPUs and x64 can use more RAM. If the problem is legacy software then virtual machines are a good solution. I often have a couple of virtual XP machines open for running old apps and for testing. On a 4 GB machine I can have a couple of XP vms using 1 GB each and the system hardly notices it. If the problem is old hardware then you will need to dual boot. The problem with dual booting is that every time you boot to XP it will destroy Vista's System Restore points. As long as you are aware of this dual booting works fine.

[davehc]

Good point TechB. All the unsuspecting should be made aware of that . I believe I read somewhere that MS have a fix for it?
Use Acronis or other imaging software - its more reliable!

[cube101]

Cheers, for the replys!
Can anyone point me to a web page that outlines the best way to go about dual booting XP32 and XP64?? never done it before and wouldn't want to screw it all up. I think i would rather go the dual boot route so i dont have memory being wasted on virtual PC as RAM is critical when it comes to 3D rendering.
again thanks for your time responding.

[davehc]

You don't really need a web page. If you already have XP on your system, and have another partition ready for Vista (Give yourself a comfortable 25Gigs for all your installed 3rd party software) Then boot up on the Vista DVD and follow the prompts. After about 30 minutes max you will be up and running with Vista, with a dual boot automatically installed.