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Surprised by Win7
Carol Haynes:
I just installed it (boot directly from the DVD rather then inserting the DVD when Vista is running as you normally do for an upgrade) and chose the customised install options. It installed fine alongside Vista. Just make sure you rejig partition sizes to leave either blank space or a blank partition for the new OS to install on.
One point to note is that if you install Win 7 as a dual boot it will more than likely put all its boot components on the existing partition. Don't be tempted to simply delete the Vista partition in the future as it will mean your Windows 7 install won't boot afterwards!
One good thing about the BCD boot management is that you no longer have to worry about drive letters - each operating system boots in as drive C once installed.
MilesAhead:
One good thing about the BCD boot management is that you no longer have to worry about drive letters - each operating system boots in as drive C once installed.
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I have to look into this more. I remember in the past having setups where one Windows could not see the other and juggling partition settings on boot. It turned into a real nightmare esp. if you try to install some software on a non system partition that can run on both OS, such as Visual Studio.
OTOH it doesn't really apply to XP and I'm not likely to mix W7 and Vista since they are pretty much the same picket fence with a different coat of paint. But I wonder if they are playing the old "active partition swap" game?
Carol Haynes:
The problem with drive letters is the way Windows installs itself. Basically if you install windows XP on a disc that already has partitions it will assume a random one of those is drive C: and allocate a new letter - which is a real pain.
With Vista and Windows 7 BCD is more logical. It assumes that when you boot into that version of windows then the current version windows drive must be drive C: which saves a lot of confusion.
It doesn't change Active partitions etc. on the disk. In fact if you install Windows 7 on a blank disk C: won't be the active partition because it sets up a small dedicated boot partition (pretty pointless if you ask me but MS seem to think it is more secure) - if there is already an active partition all the Boot stuff is placed there.
Eg. if you have Windows XP installed already and you clear enough space for Vista or Windows 7 (which isn't IMHO just Vista with a coat of paint) and then install Vista/Win 7 the boot stuff will be placed in a boot folder on the Windows XP partition (which is left as the active partition).
MilesAhead:
The entire business with drive letters is a kludge. It will never be a real OS until they do away with it. There needs to be standardized storage identification that allows a user assignable alias for a friendly name. If all the stuff is moved to another storage location the friendly name should just be associated with the non-volatile ID. Anything less is just hobbyist crap.
f0dder:
The entire business with drive letters is a kludge. It will never be a real OS until they do away with it. There needs to be standardized storage identification that allows a user assignable alias for a friendly name. If all the stuff is moved to another storage location the friendly name should just be associated with the non-volatile ID. Anything less is just hobbyist crap.-MilesAhead (November 02, 2009, 03:09 PM)
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Easily done already, and has been so for years, using NTFS junctions. Not exposed through explorer though, because drive letters work just fine for regular users :)
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