Buying new PC, comes with Windows 7 Premium Installed want XP as well - options?

Alistair Hutton

The thread title says it all, I'm buying a new machine ( http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ConfigureSystem.asp?SystemID=1011 with the GTX 260 [let me know if that sucks donkey knobs]), it's going to come with windows 7 pre-installed which I am more than fine with, however, given that it's home it doesn't have the built in XP mode. I have a copy of XP pro (32-bit) which I'd like to use as well because I'm fairly certain I'll have a number of ancient and lashed together programs that might well not run on W7. What are my options for running XP. Do I want to partition off some of my HD and go dual boot or do I want to do some of this virtualisation stuff that all the cool kids are going on about?

I'm not so bothered about old games that don't work, it's more odd development environments, music sequencers and a really, really old CAD package that I'm suspecting won't be so happy with a new op system.

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redsoxfantom

mcdermott wrote: »

Personally I just installed it on a second drive. Too easy.

Then the unused space on that drive (it's a 250GB, but obviously you could throw it on a small one just for the apps you need it for) is where my music collection lives.

EDIT: Also, you might be surprised at how few problems you have with old programs. As long as they aren't 16-bit (a real show-stopper) they may run just fine in Win7. The most you might run into is having to give yourself full privileges on their directories, or worst case having to actually run as admin.

Also, If you don't want to use your second drive, you could partition your other drive (Vista had a partitioner built in, so its probably included in 7, but if you can't find it, here's a free and easy program to use) If you install on the second partition, than you can choose what OS to boot at startup and you can save the second drive for anything else you might want to do (like RAID, for instance...)

travathian

Definitely try it in Win7 first, I agree that you'll be surprised how many apps work just fine natively or after switched to compatibility mode. Otherwise I wouldn't dual boot, just use virtualization. Your computer will have more than enough power to run a virtual XP session and chances are that those apps won't require native access to anything. Plus its just a pain in the ass to dual boot and decreases your productivity.