Installing XP after Vista

Have you ever thought about installing Windows XP after you have installed Vista ? You will probably need to do this to accommodate for some older applications and etc.

I have tried in out (in Malaysia) and it works. But it took me a while to figure out.

Here is the right thing to do..

I. Go and print out the instruction from this page.

II. Proceed to install Windows XP. (Make sure you install it in a new partition, at least 3 GB, recommended 10 GB)

By the way, if you hadn't got a partition and intended to do so, you can make use of the open source software called GParted Live-CD. It works for Vista. All you got to do is to download the ISO image, convert and burn it to a CD and then boot it from the CD. If you need a software converter to convert ISO image into CD format, you can use this free software; ISO Recorder v 2. Thanks to this site and this.

III. After you are done, you will load into Windows XP (automatically). So load XP.

IV. Then (while in XP), as stated in the instruction from here.
Put in the Vista installation CD/DVD and do the steps of 1,2 & 3.


where ...
    you need to run the "bootsect.exe -NT60 All" command from command-line(cmd.exe) to set the bootloader back to the Vista version. Bootsect.exe is only available from Vista installation CD.
V. You will really restart in Vista automatically.

VI. Ok, now according to this page, you have to do step 4,5 & 6. However, don't follow exactly.

First of all check out for the following entry by running "bcdedit /enum all"

Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------------
identifier {ntldr}
device unknown
path \ntldr
description Earlier Version of Windows

if this entry is present, then for the first line under step 5, instead of using "-create", you should be using "-set"; since the entry already exist. So, in order words, do the following as according to step 5.

Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit –set {ntldr} –d “Windows XP Pro SP2”
Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit –set {ntldr} device partition=X:
Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit –set {ntldr} path \ntldr
Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit –displayorder {ntldr} –addlast

where..
    Drive = the drive for which your Vista root directory.
    X=the drive number where Windows XP is installed.

    For instance, if you installed Vista in C drive and XP in D drive, then line number two out of the four lines above should be looking like this..

    C:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit - set {ntldr} device partition=D:

Now, after you have restarted, you will get to choose loading between Vista or XP (that is for sure). But, in my case, Windows XP still won't load because apparently the "ntldr" is missing.

Okay, now to learn about ntldr, check out the following two articles from Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555852
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

Very informative, but doesn't quite accurate on the instructions. This page is better.

Anyway, let's come back to the missing of "ntldr" problem.

The solution to that is...

VII. Load back to Vista.
VIII. After you are in Vista, put in the CD of Windows XP installer.
IX. Explore the CD/DVD to look for the "I386" folder. For instance, it could be under the following path..

E:\ENGLISH\WINXP\PRO_WITH_SP2\I386

X. Look for these two files in the "I386" folder.

NTLDR
NTDETECT.COM

XI. Copy them and paste it to the root partition of your XP installation. For instance, if you installed XP under D drive. Then put it under "D:\" directly, together with the folders of "Program Files", "Windows" & "Documents & Settings".

XII. Restart and choose XP from Windows Boot Manager. It should work. It works for me.

This is quite fun, email me (brandonteohno1@yahoo.com) if you are facing difficulties.

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