Windows Dual Boot Question

Hi all, I just have a quick question about dual booting Vista and XP.

I have a 320GB OS drive and a 1TB data drive, currently I have Vista HP 64bit installed and was considering putting together a low powered XP box so I could play all my old favourites that don't seem to want to work on Vista. Then a thought hit me, I have plenty of space to install XP and dual boot so why don't I do it, would save me some cash also.

My question is, will I need to install XP drivers on my XP OS partition? It doesn't bother me if I have to, I just want to make sure so I can start downloading them. The tutorial I have read don't cover this issue.

 

Once you setup your dual boot system and partition for XP, you need to find and install all XP drivers for your system, including (if you need them under XP) software. Once you pick an OS from the boot menu, it will be like if you had only 1 OS. Nothing special is needed or given to you.

 

Yep that's what I thought, thanks for the confirmation. +rep

 

Keep in mind though that installing XP after Vista/7 will overwrite the boot sector and you won't be able to boot the latter right out of the box. You'll have to repair it.

 

Yep I found a good DIY tute that covers all of that, there is a simple way to do it, a specific program.
Here is the tute I am using, by far the best I have looked at:
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm

 

You need to go into the BIOS and change a couple of settings so that it shows the "dual boot screen" as you say.
Alternatively, there should be a button you can press before/after the POST that shows this screen.

 

The BIOS and Dual BOOT have nothing to do with each other.
As for the button, I assume you mean F8 on the keyboard which will display the BOOT options. You still need to correct the bootloader first for the options to be made available.

 

Yep, I have read up on all this. Thanks for pointing it out again though.

 

If you have Vista installed first when you install XP it removes the Vista boot files, you need to repair the files before you can access Vista again. However if you have XP installed and the n install Vista you don't have this problem.