Triple Boot adding Vista and Win98SE to WinXP Pro

I wasn't sure which forum to post this in but feel free to relocate it if it needs to be somewhere else. I wanted to get some advice from you guys on setting up a triple boot on my machine. I've got a Dell XPS 630i with a Core 2 Quad Proc., 2.4 Ghtz and 2 GB RAM, and single 500 GB HD. The machine came with WinXP Pro pre-installed and has Service Pack 3. I want to add two additional OS's to the mix (Vista & Win98SE).

I read a few posts online prior to coming here and kind of gathered that the ideal way to do this is to install the OS's in a certain order (Win98SE/WinXP Pro/WinVista). But I also saw two or three posts that mentioned it was possible to do without necessarily having to follow that order if you use a program like Partition Magic. I actually have an old download version of Partition Magic 7.0 I bought online back in 2002. Can it help me avoid having to start from scratch? Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
 
You don't need to follow any particular order if you use EasyBCD. EasyBCD 2.0 has improved support for Windows 98.

However, it is our recommendation that you install Windows 98 to a Virtual Machine with something like the much-recommended VMware Workstation or the freeware VMware Server instead of installing it to the machine itself - much easier and more efficient in the long run.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks

OK, thanks. This will be new waters for me to wade through, but it looks pretty straightforward so far. I downloaded the VMWare server, so I plan to try that. I'll let you know if I need any help with it. :smile:

Thanks again.
 
Its a good thing to VM older OSes, so if something happens to them (viruses, spyware, other problems) it can't spread to the rest of your drive, since MS discontinues patching/supporting olders OSes after a few years of thier release.

Now for VMing i'd actually recommend VBox or Virtual PC myself, VMWare server might have too many options to confuse a user new to virtualization.
 
Back
Top