Dual Boot XP Vista

I’ve recently had problems trying to setup dual boot with Windows XP and Vista, so I’ll share my experience in getting this to work. This post will explain how to install Vista with XP already installed. I have tried to install XP with Vista already installed several times and followed different tutorials I found, each time with problems.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you have two separate partitions, one for each installation. Vista will only install on a NTFS partition and I believe you will need both partitions to be NTFS, but I could be wrong, I would recommend both partitions be NTFS at any rate.

If you currently have Vista installed and don’t mind reinstalling at a later point… Vista has great drive management utility to adjust your partitions.

If you don’t already have two partitions, right click on Computer from the Start menu and click Manage.

Click on Disk Management

 

Right Click your C: Drive and Click Shrink Volume.

Right Click your C: Drive and Click Shrink Volume.

 

Select the new size, I would recommend at least 20 gigs minimum.

 

Right Click the new unallocated space and Click New Simple Volume.

 

Follow the wizard prompts and make sure the File System is NTFS. You should have a new partition after completing the wizard.

If you don’t have Vista installed, I would recommend using a tool such as Partition Magic to make sure you have two NTFS partitions.

If you’re currently running XP, simply install Vista on the new partition.

If you’re currently running Vista, you will need to format your partition that Vista is installed on. Install XP on the partition Vista is currently installed on, and chose the format option when prompted. Once XP is installed, install Vista on the partition XP is NOT currently installed on.