Vista 64 bit, Vista/XP dual-booting

**d000hg** · December 5th, 2007, 10:27 AM

I'm currently running XP Home on my Fujitsu Scaleo P, which has an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ CPU. I'm getting a Vista license (both 32 and 64 bit versions) as part of a package I'm buying and I'm undecided whether I want to use it. I use my PC for my work, which is basically programming.

So a few questions:

1)Does the 64 in my CPU name mean I have a proper 64-bit PC that can run Vista 64bit?
2)Is there any particular reason why I would want to?
3)I'd quite like to keep XP on the PC. Is it easy to set up dual booting?
4)If I want dual boot, can I have XP and Vista 64bit, or only Vista 32bit?
5)Would I have to wipe my drive and start over to dual boot, or can I simply install Vista on my XP machine and end up with two installations?
6)If I end up with C:\ as XP and D:\ as Vista, will XP be able to access D:\ and Vista be able to access C:\

Thanks for your advice.

**phishhead** · December 5th, 2007, 17:11 PM

doohg if I were you I'd download VMserver (which is free) and make a virtual machine of vista and play with it before making the jump. personally I have vista business on my work laptop and I hate it. so whenever I have a spare time gonna go back to xp and vm vista for troubleshooting purposes only.

**d000hg** · December 18th, 2007, 12:16 PM

However, where can I find about dual-booting XP and Vista? My Vista license is upgrade only so I'd actually have to dual-boot XP & XP first, then upgrade one installation, right?

But my main question is if I have to trash my existing installation? I have a load of diskspace free (>50&#37

so is it possible to create another partition non-destructively?

**cash_site** · December 19th, 2007, 01:53 AM

I think before you start jumping to re-partitioning and loading Operating systems... you need a little research on what type of applications you are going to need to run for your business, and check their compatibility with a) VISTA b) 64bit VISTA

I like your blog, so you need to see if Microsoft have 64bit versions of Visual Studio 2005 / 2008, SQL Servers, Office etc etc... I think the 32bit versions will run, but will be in compatibiltiy mode which might slow you down.

Also, the supposed advantages of 64bit, is the extra addressable ram allocation i.e. Greater than 4GB... depends if you are going to need that much, or if you plan to develop 64bit apps?!

Out of all this, Vista will allow you to do most things (albeit slower compared to XP)

**PIPER** · December 19th, 2007, 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by d000hg

However, where can I find about dual-booting XP and Vista? My Vista license is upgrade only so I'd actually have to dual-boot XP & XP first, then upgrade one installation, right?

But my main question is if I have to trash my existing installation? I have a load of diskspace free (>50%) so is it possible to create another partition non-destructively?

I had XP installed....bought Vista Ultimate upgrade..put in the disk and it asked where I wanted it....so one install should do it....

Not necessary to trash anything.

**d000hg** · December 22nd, 2007, 13:11 PM

Originally Posted by PIPER

I had XP installed....bought Vista Ultimate upgrade..put in the disk and it asked where I wanted it....so one install should do it....

Not necessary to trash anything.

Just to confirm, you used your upgrade to set up a dual-boot system? Did you already have a 2nd hard disk or partition?

**d000hg** · December 22nd, 2007, 13:13 PM

Originally Posted by cash_site

I think before you start jumping to re-partitioning and loading Operating systems... you need a little research on what type of applications you are going to need to run for your business, and check their compatibility with a) VISTA b) 64bit VISTA

I like your blog, so you need to see if Microsoft have 64bit versions of Visual Studio 2005 / 2008, SQL Servers, Office etc etc... I think the 32bit versions will run, but will be in compatibiltiy mode which might slow you down.

Also, the supposed advantages of 64bit, is the extra addressable ram allocation i.e. Greater than 4GB... depends if you are going to need that much, or if you plan to develop 64bit apps?!

Out of all this, Vista will allow you to do most things (albeit slower compared to XP)

Thanks. I don't really have any need for the 64-bit version. I've got both the 32 and 64 bit versions... and I thought since I've got the Vista license it would be nice to try it out. I basically just use my PC for software development.