I currently have both the 32 and the 64bit versions of Vist Ultimate istalled on my machine. I'm having problems with running a program (Vue 6i) under Vista and want to reinstall my old copy of Windows XP x64. Since Vista no longer uses the BOOT.INI scheme, will installing XP AFTER Vista has been installed kill my boot options for Vista? How should I go about installing XP while leaving Vista untouched (I do not want to uninstall Vista, just to add XP to another partition)? Any help would be great. Thanks.

i'll list some options for you to choose from: XP will overwrite Vista's boot information, so you'll have to ... 1. wipe it, start from scratch and install XP first :-) 2. use a 3rd party boot manager (e.g. BootIt NG, BootStar) to hide partitions from each other. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bo... http://www.softpedia.com/get/System... 3. finally, consider virtulization (VirtualBox, VMware or MS VPC) to run XP. your machine sure has enough memory and your CPUs should provide enough power to to run such a heavyweight application like Vue in a virtual environment ... the most elegant solution as you'll have both operating systems side by side without the inconvenience to reboot in order to change from one to another. http://www.virtualbox.org/ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pr... p.s.: have you been trying to run Vue in XP SP2 compatibility mode? Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

I have to thank you Mattie for pointing out VirtualBox, as I never knew it existed and I've been using "PC Emulators" for years now, and this is surely one of the best. However, the OP made the point about installing XP X64, and I believe no PC emulators support 64-bit yet - other than QEMU, on which I tried XP x64 and it took a day to install!! I did read that VirtualBox are planning 64-bit support for guests, however.

they do indeed ... but for the time being and Vue to run, XP x86 will do :-) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

Illustrated steps for installing XP after Vista. How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

Great, thanks for the walk through.

Hmmm... after following the walk through, I can now boot to Vista, but when I try to boot to XP, I get a file arror for NTLDR and XP wants me to reboot with my XP OS disk inserted and to choose REPAIR - however, when doing so, I am not given the option to repair. I can reinstall XP and start all over (which I have done) but AGAIN, after fixing the Vista boot issue, I loose access to my XP OS... All I could find on Microsoft was: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529 Which is basically doing what Sabertooth's walk though does, but manually instead of using the 3rd part boot manager... Any help on this one? Thanks!