Feb 20 2008
Dual Booting Vista and XP
Many people have been disappointed with Windows Vista when they realized that some of their applications are incompatible with the operating system. QuickBooks 2006 is one example of a program which will not work in Vista, even if you run it with the Windows XP compatibility mode.
Vista is a major upgrade to the Windows. Its not like the transition from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, where you are actually going from Windows 5.0 to Windows 5.1. A program that ran well on Windows 2000 will very likely run well on XP. Vista, on the other hand, is another story.
With all of the compatibility issues, people are left with either buying new versions of their software (which is what Intuit recommends for QuickBooks 2006), or going back to XP.
These choices don’t really need to be made. You can have Windows Vista and XP residing on the same computer in a dual-boot setup. When the computer starts, you have a choice of running Vista or XP. This way, you can keep the applications that only work in XP on the XP partition and use Vista applications in the Vista partition.
APC Magazine published a step-by-step guide in creating a dual boot system. There are 2 different procedures, one with Vista installed first and one with XP installed first: