Getting Vista, do I dual-boot?

[guinnessman]

Hello, I'll be getting a CD set-up in the mail. What if any, are the advantages to dual-booting. From what I've read it seems to be about Vista not being able to run the things you're used to. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[XPS]

Dual booting leaves your XP installation alone and installs Vista in another partition, either an existing one or one you will create just for Vista. That way you can boot up with either windows version. Advantages of dual booting are you’re unable to get into your main OS or you want to evaluate whether to install the upgrade to a new release of Windows. It is also a crude solution to compatibility problems. lol The cd will ask you for a clean install or to upgrade. Real simple, it will do it all for you. Mostly what you wanna do is all.

[guinnessman]

O.K., so if I only need one OS, I should just install the Vista when it arrives and what, uninstall XP? I don't know if you need some high powered computer to dual-boot. I have Compaq Presario SR2032X with memory upgraded to 1GB.

[XPS]

No it will only start one windows at a time. You will not have both XP and Vista running at same time. Dual boot is pre windows load, your still in bios is where you get the option to choose which one you want to boot up. Some are keeping the option because Vista is so new and are not sure yet, folks want to make sure it will be to their liking before they totally commit. It is just a matter of how cautious you want to be. You should be fine with running dual boot if you have hard drive space available. To give yourself enough room to experiment, you should have at least 20 GB of space available on either the second partition or on the second hard disk.

[guinnessman]

Alright XPS, I get it. By the time Vista arrives I'll have my research done as far as compatability with things I like to do. I'll probably dual-boot until I'm comfortable about Vista too. Thank you.

[Baser-X]

Also keep in mind that if this is a free upgrade you're getting from your computer manufacturer it's only going to be an upgrade disc which means you won't have the option to do a clean install b/c it will upgrade the existing XP installation to Vista.

[XPS]

Your welcome and you might need some drivers when you install it I had to get a few. Here is a good site for them. The dual boot isn't that hard to get rid of if you decide to stay with Vista.

[XPS]

Sorry I didn't see anything about it being the free upgrade. Make sure to note Baser-X's comment.

[guinnessman]

Out of town for a while Thank you for the responses, Guinness Man