Two 'versions' of WinXp on the same pc?

Hello One & All!

Any info I can glean here will be much appreciated.

Briefly what I want to do is have two 'versions' of WinXp Home on one pc
with a choice of which to boot to.

The first, WinXP1 say, would have all the usual stuff (antivirus, pictures,
mp3s, docs, etc).

The second, WinXP2 say, would only have software for recording audio (i.e.
all other software including antivirus would be uninstalled - got to say I'm
not too sure about leaving off the antivirus but that's the thinking at the
mo').

So when I switch on the pc it would by default boot to WinXP1 unless I chose
(somehow?) to load WinXP2.

How do I go about doing this?

Background: The C drive has been partitioned. The drive with the current OS
is 54.8GB with 6.98GB free. The other partition is also 54.8GB. When/If I
get the two WinXPs installed I can distribute whatever free space there is.
Also got two external hard drives for data.

Options I've considered (having extensively googled):

1. Make a backup of C using Acronis True Image and save to external hard
drive (I've done this). Make an Acronis Rescue Disc (done). Boot from the CD
and 'restore' the image of C to the second partition. Will this work?

2. Clone the C drive using Acronis and install onto the empty partition.
Will this work?

I've seen mention that drive letters may be a problem. See here:
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

Seemingly a way around this is to "clear the table of partitions and drive
letter assignments" using regedit (mentioned in above article - see link).
The article also advises not to let the new XP partition to 'see' the old XP
partition. Unfortunately no advise on how to do this is mentioned.

I would guess someone will suggest setting up a another user account
specifically for recording. Personally I'm not keen on different user
accounts having experienced probs with passwords and settings previously
(though this was on ME!).

Many thanks - Chris


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Relevant Pages

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