Dual Boot: Adding Windows Vista to a Computer with XP and at least 40GB of unused disk space.
After deciding to upgrade to Windows Vista, you may find that certain software programs are incompatible with Vista. To continue using the software, Windows XP must be retained on the PC. You may also want to keep Windows XP as a backup operating system until you become more familiar with Windows Vista.
To use both Windows XP and Windows Vista on the same system, you must create a dual boot scenario.
A dual-boot scenario allows you to select the operating system you would like to use when the computer is powered on.
Use the following steps to create a Windows XP/Windows Vista dual-boot scenario:
NOTE: It may be a good idea to print these instructions for use while Windows is not available.
With the Windows Vista upgrade DVD in a DVD drive, turn on the computer.
Press any key on the keyboard when "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD" appears on the screen.
The text "Windows is loading files" appears with a progress indicator and eventually an "Install Windows" setup screen opens.
Complete the initial Windows Setup Screens:
Select or accept the default selections from the Language to install, Time and Currency format, and Keyboard or input method dropdown menus and then click Next.
Click Install Now on the "Install Now" screen that opens.
Enter the Windows Vista Product key into the field provided and click Next, or do the following:
Remove the selection from Automatically activate Windows when I’m online and click Next.
Doing this means you will only have 30 days before you must activate or reinstall Vista.
At the “Do you want to enter your Product key now?” screen, click No.
Select a version of Vista that the computer is qualified to use.
Select “I have selected the edition of Windows that I purchased”, click Next.
After reading the license terms, select I accept the license terms to continue and then click Next.
At the Installation Type screen, click Custom (advanced).
A "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen opens.
Press the Shift + F10 keys to open a command prompt in an Administrator console.
Using the command console, shrink the main volume used by Windows XP to allocate space for Vista as follows:
At the command prompt, enter the following text: diskpart
Wait for the "DISKPART>" command prompt to appear and then enter the following text: list vol
A list of storage device volumes is shown.
Figure 1: Example of volume information
From this list, write down the Volume number that will be used to make space. Typically, this will be the volume with the largest amount of space in Gigabytes (GB) and the volume that already contains XP (HP_PAVILION or PRESARIO).
CAUTION: Do not use the Recovery partition (HP_RECOVERY) if it is listed.
Enter the following text at the prompt : Select Vol X
(Where X is the volume number that will be shrunk to accomodate the space needed by Vista)
To create the space needed for Vista and shrink the size of the selected partition, enter the following text at the command prompt: shrink querymax
Text similar to the following should appear: The maximum number of reclaimable bytes is: XX GB
From the number of reclaimable bytes that is listed, determine how much space you would like to allocate to Windows Vista. The amount of space taken will also reduce the amount of space for XP.
CAUTION: At the time of this writing, the suggested minimum amount of hard drive space for Vista is at least 4O GB leaving 15 GB free for normal use. Make sure the minimum space is at least 40 GB (40000 MB) or Windows Vista may not work as expected.
If the selected partition does not have enough space, you can restart the PC into Windows XP, remove enough software programs and files to make enough space, and then perform these steps again.
Enter the following text at the prompt : shrink desired=#
(Where # is the amount of space in Megabytes that you want to use for Vista.)
For example, entering "shrink desired=60000" will free 60 GB of new space for Vista and reduce the current partion on the selected volume by 60 GB.
The disk is now prepared to accept Vista. Enter the following at the command prompt to exit the disk partition utility: exit
Enter the following at the command prompt to close the console window: exit
The screen returns to "Where do want to install Windows?" Click Refresh to update the unallocated disk space.
Select the new unallocated space by clicking the appropriate volume and click Next.
Windows Vista installs.
Complete the Windows Vista installation by filling out the setup screens as prompted. Once Vista is fully installed you are done. You will notice that you are now prompted to select an operating system whenever the computer is started.
If you would like to change the titles of the Windows in the startup list, complete the following optional steps:
Start Windows Vista.
Click Start , All Programs, and then Accessories.
Right-click Command Prompt, and then select Run as administrator.
A "User Account Control" window appears. Click Continue.
A command console appears.
Enter the following text at the command prompt, including the title of the Windows XP version that you are currently using in quotation marks: BCDEDIT /set {ntldr} description "Windows XP Home Edition"
NOTE: Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional Edition, and Windows XP Media Center Edition are good examples of what you can be entered between the quotation marks.
Enter the following text at the command prompt, including the title of the operating system that you would like to see in quotation marks: BCDEDIT /set {current} description "Windows Vista Home Premium Edition"
NOTE: Windows Vista Home Basic Edition, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, Windows Vista Business Edition, and Windows Vista Ultimate Edition are good examples of what can be entered between the quotation marks.
To close the command window, enter the following text at the command prompt: exit
Restart the computer and make sure that the selection names match the Windows versions. For example, make sure that Windows Vista does not open Windows XP and vice versa.
You are finished. You can use either XP or Vista when starting your computer.