Dual Boots with XP Pro loaded and Vista Upgrade

[Thomas Edwards]

Need help - must install Vista on 8 systems using WinXP Home and 1 system using Win XP Pro.

My Vista is a Business Upgrade. Because I teach on these computers I need to be able to use either OS depending on the student.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thomas Edwards

[degsy]

With the info you have given you cannot do what you want for legal reasons.

If you have 8 PCs then you will need 8 XP licenses and 8 Vista (full) licences before even thinkiing of dual booting.

[Thomas Edwards]

Hi Degs,

I understand the trepidation embedded in your response however, my Vista Business Upgrade IS a Volume Licensed endeavor. I am a volunteer (without pay) at a Seniors Association and there is no way I would contemplate getting either the association or myself in trouble. I have been doing this now for more than 5 years and therefore a whole lot of people know me and what I do. If I was trying to make an end run around Microsoft I am sure someone would make it known.

As an aside, I just hope your msge will not preclude others from answering my plea for help. Obviously it will take some time for me to become really familiar and at ease with Vista, just as obviously some students will want to stay with XP while others who have just purchased a new computer will want instruction on the Vista OS.

regards
Tom

[Thomas Edwards]

Originally Posted by degsy

With the info you have given you cannot do what you want for legal reasons.
If you have 8 PCs then you will need 8 XP licenses and 8 Vista (full) licences before even thinkiing of dual booting.

Hi Degsy,
I am wondering if your reply to my plea for help choked off others who may have replied.
Is there any point in me reposting? I really need a solution to my problem.
Further to the initial prob of purchasing a volume license ($1500) for the class computers, the Vista did not come on a DVD but rather on 1 hru 4 cd's. Because of the problems of visiting each computer and installing Vista via 4 cd's i am wondering if there is any way of copying the cd's to a dvd.
Explore shows that the 2nd, 3rd and 4th cd's contain only 1 folder (Sources) tho the content of THAT folder is different for each cd. Obviously I cannot copy the last 3 cd's to a dvd OR a hard drive without overwriting the "Sources" folder each time. Sooooo, I am wondering if I could just copy the content of the "Sources" folder from each cd, ready to copy the files to a DVD.
Any advice?
Tom

[Thomas Edwards]

Hi everyone, I am rather surprised that there has not been any attempt to answer my request for help. There as been nothing posted that faintly resembles a response to my first post above.
Is there a problem?
Tom

[Porthos]

The problem is you can not use an UPGRADE license to DUAL boot. It is ment to upgrade the existing XP install.

That is why this was posted.
With the info you have given you cannot do what you want for legal reasons.

If you have 8 PCs then you will need 8 XP licenses and 8 Vista (full) licences before even thinkiing of dual booting.

It is against the EULA to use UPGRADES the way you intend.

[Thomas Edwards]

Thankyou for that Porthos,

I have skipped thru the EULA but have not made myself aware of your point.

However, given that caveat, it would seem to me that I can, 1) partition each hard drive; 2) reinstall my LEGAL FULL versions of WinXP in the new partition(s); 3)upgrade the WinXP in the original installation(s); 4) dual boot as desired.

Surely there would be no problems with that?

[leroys1000]

It may be possible to do it that way,but the upgrade overrides
the XP license.
In which case,you would need a total of 16 XP licenses to do
what you are trying.

[Thomas Edwards]

OK, I give up - it seems I have just lost $1400 for the Association.

Why on earth an 'upgrade' would automatically 'kill' the use of a previous OS version, is beyond me. Also it seems that this kind of restriction is never found out UNTIL the sealed package has been opened.

Tom