Test Windows 7 Now - Free RC release for a year

[dr_ml422]

Ok guys, I'm glad there's a forum for 7 now, but this several OS's on 1 pc and in different drives/partitions w/the whole c; thing is beyond me for now. Only so much Googling and researching I could do daily. I'll throw 64 bit 7 on my new build once it's finished as imo the 64 bit is what's really the new feature. We already know what 32 bit of anything is capable of. I'll just have clones of XP Home readily available to throw into any pc if needed. Cost of hdd's being so low right now until the ssd's come down gives one the option of having many at their disposal.

That said what is the actual basis for introducing a new OS anyway? I'm honestly new to the basic concepts regarding computers. Is it that at some point certain software will only work w/the new OS's? I see that especially where business is concerned. Other than that and the 64 bit I don't see the reasoning to the method behind the madness. Thnx.

[MilesAhead]

In the old days MS operating systems had to be on C: because it was just hard-wired into a lot of the code. I think NT was the first one that allowed you to install on a partition with a letter other than C: afa Microsoft OS goes. The reason I asked is because dual booting more than one OS that had to be on C: used to rely on hiding partitions. When you boot one OS that startup code would hide the partition the other OS was on, and vice versa. It would work for awhile, but it's only a matter of time with that scheme before something gets out of whack where which partition gets hidden is the reverse of what's needed. They get things out of sync. Few people back in those days had UPS so it was easy to get a 1/2 boot with a power glitch or some other reason.

With a real boot manager, usually you don't hide partitions. You just have it set up so all the partitions that have an OS have boot code inside the partition and the manager takes care of jumping into it.

That's why I was concerned because if the OS insists on being C: then you have to play dumb bootup games again. It's a less stable setup.

[dr_ml422]

So I guess XP Home can be installed on a partition other than C: because I've noticed that it always asked where you would like to install it. Thnx for the info Miles. I'll just keep it simple for now. Way too much for me to get into at the moment.

1 ?. Can you actually have more than 1 OS running at the same time on the same PC, but different partition? It sounds like it would be confusing to the mobo switching from 1 partition to another through my computer. Also I would think that if you're going to have more than 1 os on the pc that they should both be the same bit wise? Like 2 32 bits or 2 64 bits. Otherwise if you can mix n match bit sizes then you would have to have enough ram to support the 64 bit. It's good to know these things. I would reason though that these setups are really great for testing so you could pick which one you'd like. Other than that I don't see any reason having them on 1 pc. My Dell has come in handy as a xtra when I'd need to RMA something from my build.

[soup]

I was running XP32 & XP64 on seperate drives. Now running XP32 & Windows 7 64 bit with virtual XP installed. one advantage of having 2 x OSs is that if you are having problems or not being able to boot into one of the OSs, there's a good chance that you can boot into the other one & possibly fix the problem.

[dr_ml422]

Hi soup. You were actually running both on at same time on different drives? By different drives you mean a entirely separate hdd, or a partition on same drive? Also you mean the mobo will pick up w/e you install on the hdd's w/out having to change the bios constantly? I would think that the settings for 1 os would be different for another one especially if different in bit size.

If the os say on the same hdd fails but the other one on different partition but same hdd still boots there's nothing you can do other than a clean install on the partition that went bad. So I guess you mean having 2 or more os's on different physical drives?

[admin]

You just need different partitions. There are lots of partition managers these days, some are free and Linux based like GParted, and even Vista comes with one. All you need to do to create a new partition (assuming you've got free space) is to resize the existing partition to create the free space and then give that space to a new partition. Of course, you should backup your data since this can wipe out all your data if you're not careful.

I have 3 partitions on the same physical drive/array (RAID mirror), one for each OS (XP, Vista and 7 - installed in this order).

[dr_ml422]

Hi admin. I know how to create the partitions. I just wasn't sure if all OS's were actually up and running and at one's mercy to use whenever like other things are in a different partition. I'm under the impression that since they're in a partition you could just go to that partition in my computer after closing the other one and open it. This sounds crazy now that I think about it as it has to boot. So even though you have 2 or 3 OS's on 1 PC that doesn't mean more than 1 can be up and running at a time correct? That really would be something if it's that way. Thnx.

[MilesAhead]

I was running XP32 & XP64 on seperate drives. Now running XP32 & Windows 7 64 bit with virtual XP installed. one advantage of having 2 x OSs is that if you are having problems or not being able to boot into one of the OSs, there's a good chance that you can boot into the other one & possibly fix the problem.

Also a cool thing if your boot manager or MBR happens to be hosed, you can make a boot utility on a USB key that bypasses the MBR and boot manager on the HD and jumps to the Windows OS you select. Similar to the old Linux boot diskette that loaded Linux from the HD.

The guys at Bootland showed me how to do it.

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7778

[admin]

Hi admin. I know how to create the partitions. I just wasn't sure if all OS's were actually up and running and at one's mercy to use whenever like other things are in a different partition. I'm under the impression that since they're in a partition you could just go to that partition in my computer after closing the other one and open it. This sounds crazy now that I think about it as it has to boot. So even though you have 2 or 3 OS's on 1 PC that doesn't mean more than 1 can be up and running at a time correct? That really would be something if it's that way. Thnx.

Not sure what you mean. When you have multiple OS in different partitions, you will be given the option to boot to any of them at start-up (after the POST stuff). Once you boot into whichever OS you have selected, the current Windows (or whatever OS) will be practically oblivious to the other OS'es and you can use the current OS normally without it altering or destroying your other OS. You will still be able to view the contents of the other partitions as long as they're in a file system understood by the current OS (so if you have XP, Vista and 7, then all 3 partitions, being NTFS, will be accessible from any OS - obviously you can delete all the files from one partition and that would destroy the OS on that partition, and if you're really unlucky, delete the boot files and basically render your computer useless until you reinstall the boot manager).

Another option is to use Windows 7's (Ultimate's) VHD feature, where an entire virtual hard-disk/partition is actually just in a single .vhd file that can be placed on any existing partition - the Windows 7 bootloader will then be able to load and treat this single .vhd file as if it was a "real" hard-drive or partition and load windows from that. The advantages of this is that you don't need to create a partition and all that, but the Windows 7 bootloader will have to replace your existing one for this to work (and you need the Ultimate edition of Windows 7).

The options described above means that if you need to run the other OS, simply restart the computer and choose it from the boot option. However, if you want to run one OS within another OS, then you need to look into virtualization. It is possible to do this, and actually not that hard (and saves the trouble of having a new partition for the OS). The downside is that it will be much slower than having a "real" install as emulation is being used for hardware.

[dr_ml422]

That's what I was thinking of when you guys mentioned dual boot etc... Dual Boot sounds like loading both OS's simultaneously or having the option to do so. Now that you explained the last option w/the virtualization I understand how it could be done. I'm ok w/1 OS at a time for now. If I want to play w/these options at least I understand how they work now. I've yet to hose an OS or have a HDD go bad, and I also clone my whole HDD w/Acronis which does a excellent job for backup. I've tried installing the cloned drive and it works flawlessly as if the original one never left the case.

I'm now loading up on xtra hdd's w/the prices so low. Only thing I wish was they keep the lower storage drives out longer as a OS surely doesn't need 160 or more GB's just to boot and run. Also many keep their data and apps. on a separate drive which makes more sense as a lil more space is needed for that. I might just get a 32 GB flash drive which are decently priced and install a OS on that. It'll be just fine size wise and load faster as well. Right now my present build's OS is on a 250 GB hdd which is overkill. I partitioned it into 50 for the OS and the rest for w/e, but too much access within the same drive either through separate partitions or not causes a lot of thrashing and more defragment.

Another thing that's not exactly firm data wise is the cache on the drives themselves. I spent some time on Google in many forums, including the Storage Review one and they even can't really positively notice a big difference between 8, 16 and 32 mb cache drives. At most a lil but nothing significant. Now when they went from 2 to 8 that was another story. Reason I brought this up is because I just bought 2 WD hdd's. 1 80 GB's and the other 320 GB's. Both are 8 MB's cache. I didn't mind the 80 having 8 MB's but was concerned about the 320. After searching through Google and even speaking w/WD themselves I'll be just fine. So all this Sata II stuff at 3 GB's which is posted by Seagate but w/no real tests to backup is just marketing imho. Tell you the truth the WD's I have to me are faster then the perpendicular recording Seagates. It's that 5 yr. warranty that catches one's eyes, but they've come a long way w/hardware and HDD's don't konk out that easily anymore. So 3 years from WD is just fine w/me.

[MilesAhead]

One issue that does come up if you have NTFS partitions that can all see each other is restore points. XP doesn't understand Vista and W7 restore points. If I make a restore point while in XP when I boot back to Vista I have to remember to make one since XP deletes them all(thinks they are defective.) Fortunately now that I have W7 on that machine, it automatically makes a new restore point when I boot up after XP kills them all.

That's the main side-effect I'm aware of. If one OS is XP and the other W7 then you don't need to worry about it too much. Vista, due to HD usage, sometimes runs smoother if you put the Shadowcopy service on Manual. But the down side is you need to remember to make a restore point(if you use system restore at all) when you boot away from XP.

edit: btw if it drives you crazy that XP deletes your restore points I believe there's a registry hack you can use so that XP won't see the other OS partition. But me, I'd rather put up with the minor annoyance and be able to copy files. If you really want the reg hack I think you can find it on Vista Forums.

http://www.vistax64.com/

[soup]

I don't know if it's been mentioned or not, if it has sorry, but if you want to run Virtual XP, your system has to be capable of handling virtualization. Don't ask me the tech stuff on it, but you have to turn it on in BIOS. I believe there is a program out there that will tell you if you can or can't. Hopefully a tech or somebody more experienced can add to that. & yes you can have Virtual XP right in the quick launch bar of Windows 7. Click to VXP & then back to W7, it is kind of cool. Now I just have to figure out how to use it to it's fullest. I have never been much into virtual anything.

[PurpleDemon]

I just found that out tonight. Here is the page to get the tester for your AMD system.

Sadly mine is not compatible.

[doctorhardware]

I knew that my laptop would not be compatible. Just tested for the hell of it.

[MilesAhead]

I just found that out tonight. Here is the page to get the tester for your AMD system.

Sadly mine is not compatible.

Maybe they pulled it? I tried FF and Opera on that link and I get a page with no meat to it and a dead download link.

edit: found it on Softpedia. It doesn't like my unpatched bios. That's ok. I didn't want to run it anyway.