Tutorial to Dual Booting XP and Vista With Vista Already Installed
Version 0.51
This article shows how to install Windows XP with Windows Vista already installed. No data will be lost, no extra software is needed and you can choose which operating system to boot everytime you power on your system.
DISCLAIMER: Proceed at your own risk! The information
here is accurate to the best of my knowledge. I will not be held
responsible if this document causes your computer to explode or
burst into flames. In real serious terms, if any corruption of
data, hardware damage or any other kind of damage/losses/etc.
arises from the use of this document, I will not be responsible
for it. If you don't like this, please don't read any further.
Is this document intended for you?
You want to install Windows XP in a computer that has only Windows Vista installed
You have made a backup of your system in case something goes wrong
This guide assumes you want to install Windows XP into Drive D. If you want to install to another drive, substitute the appropriate drive letter for D.
This guide assumes Windows Vista is installed in Drive C
1) What is Needed
Vista Installation DVD
XP Installation Disc (preferably SP2)
A drive with at least 5GB free space
2) Preparation of XP Installation Drive
This guide will assume that you will be installing XP to Drive D.
Click Start
Click Computer
Under Hard Drives, there should be one labeled "Local Disk C:"
If you don't have a Drive D, you must create a new partition
If you don't have a Drive D with at least 5GB free space, you need to create a partition as below.
Creating a Partition
Skip this part if you already have a Drive D with at least 5GB of free space.
Click Start
On the right column, right-click Computer on the left column
Click Manage
Vista should pop a User Account Control box, click Continue
Computer Management window opens
In the left column, expand Storage to reveal Disk Management.
Click Disk Management
Disk Management
Right-click the shaded area (or the area labeled C:)
Click Shrink Volume...
In "Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB", enter the amount of space in MegaBytes that you want to dedicate for Windows XP. We recommend at least 5GB (that's 5,000 MegaBytes).
If you are planning to use XP as your main operating system, you may want to dedicate more space for the drive as the process will be harder after installation of XP. Remember to ensure that Vista's drive has sufficient space left for its own use (at least 15GB)
Click Shrink A new 'Unallocated' partition is created beside C drive
Right-click the Unallocated partition
Click New Simple Volume...
Click Next 2 times
Note the drive letter assigned under "Assign the following drive letter". In our case, it is E as the letter D is already taken up by the CD-ROM drive. We will need to fix this later on. Click Next.
Enter a name for the drive under "Volume Label". You may want to name it WINXP.
Place a checkmark for "Perform a quick format"
Click Next
Click Finish The new drive will be formatted and made ready to be used
Changing Drive Letters
Note: Skip this part if your Drive D already points to a valid hard drive partition and not to a CD-ROM drive.
Our new partition is now Drive E. For cosmetics sake, we prefer the new drive to be Drive D. If you are fine (or require it to be such for some compatibility reason) Drive D to be the CD-ROM drive and E being the Windows XP drive, you can skip this part.
In your task bar, close all programs except Computer Management
At Computer Management, with Disk Management selected on the left, right-click the CD-ROM (D:) and click Change Drive Letter and Paths...
Click Change...
Under "Assign the following drive letter", select K (or any other letter besides D)
Click OK
Click OK for the warning that appears
Right-click the newly created partition labeled E: and click Change Drive Letter and Paths...
Click Change...
Under "Assign the following drive letter", select D
Click OK
Click OK for the warning that appears
Right-Click the CD-ROM (K:) and click Change Drive Letter and Paths...
Click Change...
Under "Assign the following drive letter", select E (or any other letter besides D)
Click OK
Click OK for the warning that appears
The drives are now nicely assigned drive letters
At this point Drive D is ready for installation of Windows XP.
3) Installing Windows XP
Now we proceed to install Windows XP.
Insert the Windows XP Installation Disc into your PC
Restart your PC and look for the "Press any key to boot from CD ..." prompt and quickly hit Enter. You only have a few seconds to do this before it proceeds to start Vista
After you hit Enter, it will take sometime for Windows XP Setup to start
At the welcome page, press Enter
Accept the licence agreement by hitting F8
At the installation drive selection page, select the newly created D drive by hitting the down arrow in your keyboard. Do NOT select the default entry, which is Drive C.
Press Enter
In the file system selection page, highlight the option "Leave the current file system intact (no changes)". Do NOThighlight any of the Format options. This should be already selected by default.
At this stage, you are still able to boot Vista as per normal and you can terminate this tutorial safely if you wish.
Proceeding to the next step will install XP and make Vista unbootable unless you follow the entire guide.
Press Enter
Windows XP will begin installing to Drive D. Follow prompts normally until you see the Windows Bliss (the trademark wallpaper) .
4) Reinstating Windows Vista Back
At this stage, you should have completed installing Windows XP to Drive D. You would have noticed that you can only boot into Windows XP now.
We need to fix Vista back together with XP and this is where the Vista installation disc comes in
Insert the Vista Boot DVD and restart your PC
Restart your PC and look for the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD . . ." prompt and quickly hit Enter. You only have a few seconds to do this before it proceeds to start XP
Press any key to boot from CD or DVD . . .
Click Next at the "Install Windows" screen.
Click Repair your computer at the bottom left of the window Vista Setup searches for Vista installations
After the search is completed, click Next
System Recovery
Click Startup Repair Vista Setup will attempt to repair the boot sector
Click Finish
5) Putting Back XP in the Boot Menu
After the restart, you should be back in VIsta now. Unfortunately, now you cannot access Windows XP. Here's how to put back XP into the boot menu.
Insert the Windows Vista Setup disc to your E drive
If your drive letters are different, you will need to EDIT the bat file and replace E: with the appropriate drive letter (thanks juliabird)
Go to your Desktop.
Right-Click the file, and click Run as administrator
Note: The third command may give an error which can be safely ignored.
Option 2: Run Commands Manually
Insert the Windows Vista Setup disc to your E drive
Click Start
Type CMD and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter (press and hold Ctrl, press and hold Shift, press and hold Enter, release all)
Vista should pop a User Account Control box, click Continue
You should see a command prompt.
After typing each line below, press Enter on your keyboard.
Do not copy and paste, you must type it out. Note that we are assuming Drive E to contain your Vista installation disc and Drive C to contain the Vista installation.
