Re: Want a HowTo for multibooting two or more Vista versions


"Night Hawk" <guest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:10f2da3928f8c8ad628f01f480342f3b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Paul Randall;1053931 Wrote:
Hi,
My OEM Vista installation disk allows me to install any of the 8 vista
versions (Business, Business N, Enterprise, Home Basic, Home Basic N,
Home
Premium, Starter, and Ultimate) and use them on a 30-day trial basis
when I
don't enter a product key. I've tried this with the Ultimate version
and it
seems to work, but I have not tried the others.

I have a 320 GB hard drive available and would like to install all 8
versions as a multiboot setup, so I can more easily explore the
differences
between them. I think allocating 30 GB per Vista partition and any
leftover
space to a common logical partition available to all Vista versions
should
work fairly well. I've done some research,
(http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htmI and
'Multibooters - Dual/Multi Booting With Vista'
(http://www.multibooters.co.uk) and others), and I think that I can use
the
XOSL boot loader to boot Vista from primary partitions and logical
partitions, and I think that XOSL is capable of hiding all the other
Vista
partitions from the one that is being booted, so that there will be no
crosstalk between the Vista versions. I'm hoping that each Vista
partition
will be completely independent of the multiboot setup so that I can
start
fresh in any version by restoring that one partition from a Ghost copy.
My
research has found a number of very good web sites that discuss the
problems
and possible work-arounds for the problems, but I have not found a
'HowTo
set it up' procedure.

I'm hoping someone will post a procedure to set up multi-booting for
two or
more versions of Vista on a single hard drive or post a URL that has
that
kind of procedure.

Thanks,

-Paul Randall

There isn't any guide to be found to start with. You can only create 4
primary type partitions on any single hard drive. You bets option would
be creating several virtual hard drives and see each edition installed
on Virtual PC 2007. The limitations seen there would be on the total
amount of drive space not how many drives can be created. 'How to Create
a Virtual Machine in Windows Virtual PC'
(http://digg.com/microsoft/How_to_Create_a_Virtual_Machine_in_Windows_Virtual_PC)

Thanks for your input. I agree that Virtual PC 2007 may be a good way to do
what I want, although my computer only has one GB of memory. I will try
that.

While it is true that one can only create 4 primary partitions using
standard partitioning, I don't think that should limit what I want to do.
One of the URLs I referenced (or some URL they reference) talked about a
multiboot system like this (easier to read with a fixed pitch font):
Boot option-> DOS Win98 Win2000 WinXP Alt98
Pri-1: C: hidden hidden hidden hidden
Pri-2: hidden C: hidden hidden hidden
Pri-3: hidden hidden hidden C: hidden
Log-1: hidden hidden C: hidden hidden
Log-2: hidden hidden hidden hidden C:
Log-3: D: D: D: D: D:
Log-4: E: E: E: E: E:

The only non-standard thing about this multiboot setup was the use of XOSL,
which is capabale of both hiding and activating both primary and logical
drives. I have set up multiboot WXP systems that were installed to logical
partitions, but at that time I had not heard of XOSL to hide/de-activate all
other install partitions. I think I just need more info on how to get
around Vista's obsession with writing its own MBR on some drive of its
choice during installation and how to make it think it is where it should be
during boots to that Vista installation.



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Want a HowTo for multibooting two or more Vista versions
    ... The use of XOSL removes the need for each Vista installation to have its own ... logical partitions. ... I have not actually read the license text in these folders, ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general)
  • Re: Want a HowTo for multibooting two or more Vista versions
    ... All versions of Vista are on the disk not to allow you to evaluate each one, but rather to make product distribution easier (one disk can provide whichever version the end user has a license for). ... The phrase "alternate version" does not mean what you are thinking, it means your license is good for either 32 or 64 bit, but only one or the other (not both, even if you use only one installation at a time). ... XOSL allows changing both the active and hidden flags on both primary and logical partitions. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general)
  • Re: Thoughts on Vista
    ... Vista has been released. ... I ran the upgrade advisor downloaded from Microsoft. ... upgrade advisor ignored a few hard drives on that system with several ... Oh the installation of Vista went ...
    (alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt)
  • Re: vista with xubuntu+dual boot
    ... After installing xubuntu i cant see vista anymore though the ... Could someone tell me what went wrong, is there a way to put grub so that ... partitions on your machine and added entries for those partitions in ... time of installation it could not read those other partitions. ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: Non-nForce MB to nForce vista upgrade - is there salvation?
    ... You need to perform a clean install of Vista after that sort of significant hardware change. ... Do not format and the existing installation will be moved to a windows.old folder where you can recover data from. ... When attempting to boot into vista, I am greeted with a BSOD for about 0.10 ... memory out, removing all unnecessary peripherals, hard drives, etc. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.installation_setup)
Loading