partition vista 64bit for XP?

[chelseaman]

Can I partition part of my vista 64bit  HD and install  say XP or vista 32 bit ?
I have 700gb free at moment,would 300/400gb be ok or too much. I have the cdrom`s.
Would it be any easier if I put another formatted HD into pc,gave it a letter and installed XP on this?
Basically thinking of way to allow me to play older games or will windows still block due to no signature.

Appreciate any help
cheers

[TheHalf™]

Absolutely, use the installation disc of your OS to do that, if not you can use PartitionMagic (the one by powerquest) to achieve that. And finally yes you can physically install another HDD. Windows by default will assign a drive letter but you can always change that after installation of the OS on the 2nd HDD.

TheHalf™

[Synbios]

I like Parted Magic myself. The BEST partition tool I have ever used!

[chelseaman]

  Thanks folks, Will let you know how I get on.
cheers

[chelseaman]

   Setting up partition no problem. Downloaded XP was ok until stopping at DMI pool data,with purple and green squares accross screen. Vista home premium 32 bit downloaded ok, but after hours of downloading courtesy of MS, 300 updates ,with service packs from 1 to 176 and many hours,was starting to  to think of billy (he`s the only one I can get away with using bad language with  ).
Game (Burnout Paradise) installed ok and wanted to run,but program only recognised keyboard controls instead of wheel.

Thats when I called it quits for tonight.
cheers

[chip!]

Keep in mind, Vista was the worst system for drivers. Before you begin, verify that there are manufacturer drivers available for both Windows XP and Windows Vista 32 for both your video card and your wheel. This is obviously very important.

I dont know much about wheels, but I would guess Windows 7 would have the best support for the wheel, followed by Windows XP, followed by Windows Vista (as this is the case with most everything now-a-days.)

Also, I was under the impression that Windows 7 stole the best gaming OS from WinXP.. or at least came close enough that WinXP is not needed anymore. Anyone know more about that?

Setting up partition no problem. Downloaded XP was ok until stopping at DMI pool data,with purple and green squares accross screen.

my guess is that you need to use Easy BCD to re-load the Windows Vista boot loader.  Windows XP had an older boot loader and often causes problems that could hang at DMI pool data. This is especially the case when you install WinXP onto the same physical drive as another existing Vista/7 installation. If you try this again, it might be easier to add a 2nd harddrive and install WinXP to that drive. And/or, make sure to complete Step 3 from the guide below.

See these articles related to this:

Guide: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+from+the+DVD

Not very helpful, FYI only:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529


Next, if you have the Vista Boot loader back after you installed WinXP, and you still hang when booting up, try booting WinXP into Safe-Mode. Possibly you have a video card driver problem.

Vista home premium 32 bit downloaded ok, but after hours of downloading courtesy of MS, 300 updates ,with service packs from 1 to 176 and many hours,was starting to  to think of billy (he`s the only one I can get away with using bad language with ).
Game (Burnout Paradise) installed ok and wanted to run,but program only recognised keyboard controls instead of wheel.

Under device manager, does it show your wheel installed with manufacture's drivers? Or a universal one from Microsoft?

[Synbios]

Also, I was under the impression that Windows 7 stole the best gaming OS from WinXP.. or at least came close enough that WinXP is not needed anymore.  Anyone know more about that?

Yes certainly for a couple of reasons that are off the top of my head:
1) Microsoft stopped supporting directx for WinXP a while ago. I think the last version that it supports is DX9c. Win7 supports the latest pixel shader and directx versions (11+) Of course your video card also has to be compatible. But even moderately old video cards can support DX 10, which was initially released with Vista.
2) Win7 was highly optimized for parallel computing and CPU management. For example when you're running a full-screen game, win7 automatically detects this and gives it full CPU power. Winxp was not so good with CPU management (AV scans, background processes etc. take a little bit of juice sometimes). Of course optimization of your system is very important, but Win7 provides a bit more leeway for the joe schmoe who doesn't care to turn off his AV scan while playing crysis. Though the game does need to be optimized for parallel computing, win7 was designed with multi-core in mind, and can help a little bit with performance on dual-core and so forth machines.

In summary, I would say for 32-bit, single core processors, WinXP is still the best OS to use. Windows 7 is definitely the best option for 64-bit and dualcore+ machines. Win XP 64bit SUCKS sooo bad (I used it for a little while before switching back to 7). Vista is just crap all together, win7 is better than Vista in almost every way imaginable.

[TheHalf™]

  Setting up partition no problem. Downloaded XP was ok until stopping at DMI pool data,with purple and green squares accross screen. Vista home premium 32 bit downloaded ok, but after hours of downloading courtesy of MS, 300 updates ,with service packs from 1 to 176 and many hours,was starting to  to think of billy (he`s the only one I can get away with using bad language with  ).
Game (Burnout Paradise) installed ok and wanted to run,but program only recognised keyboard controls instead of wheel.

Thats when I called it quits for tonight.
cheers

Remember both or all 3 OS's are NTFS so you can literally copy and paste the drivers of the wheel off the 64bit system and place them in the 32bit system XP/Vista if you know where they are located. Now I would recomend XP 32 over Vista 32 and like chip posted resolve the DMI issue.

But!!! if your logging to many hours @ your PC and their not from gaming  go with a second HDD. Just remember to match the SATA or PATA HDD's (which ever is already installed) before you purchase another.

TheHalf™

[chip!]

Remember both or all 3 OS's are NTFS so you can literally copy and paste the drivers of the wheel off the 64bit system and place them in the 32bit system XP/Vista if you know where they are located.

I might be misunderstanding what you meant here, but I just wanted to clarify so there is no confusion. you can not copy 64bit drivers and use them on a 32bit OS. 64bit machines need 64bit drivers and 32bit machines need 32bit, they are not backwards compatible. also, it does not matter on the file system (ntfs, fat32), just the OS. however, sometimes you can get Vista 32bit or Win 7 32bit to load a driver from Win XP 32. but you definitely can not take a 64bit driver from any OS and load it on a 32bit OS.

[TheHalf™]

however, sometimes you can get Vista 32bit or Win 7 32bit to load a driver from Win XP 32 is what I meant. Thanks for the catch chip. Thinking faster then I can type.

TheHalf™

[chelseaman]

  You guys have the knowledge. Tks for help.
Managed to find older software driver from logitec, got wheel configured again and almost jumped out of my skin when testing force feedback. Dropped that back to 50% for now. Loaded "Burnout Paradise" (game says it runs on XP and Vista). Actually runs on full resolution on pc,and goes through scenes and even gave me a learners license and a beat up car.lol  But then there was no movement from wingman wheel and cannot move car to start.
There must be something I`ve missed. Also could not find an exit button to get out of game. Must be something to configure wheel to game.
Anyway, going to unistall game and retry
Partition is vista 32 bit, but will run repair before download.
cheers

Still no go. MS have so many security stoppers,including Event 5032 security auditing.
Tried with internet off/firewall off etc.
VISTA 64 or 32 are going to get deaded. I want the older games  Will format HD and reinstall XP for a while and surely that should work.
Bed time.
cheers

[chelseaman]

Well folks,figured how I will get around this I have several spare cases,mobo`s/processors etc and I will put together an XP rig for the games.This will give me something to do.

I have since reformatted the 32 bit partition,removed it from boot.ini and deleted. Now I have 200gb of clean formatted unlocated space/volume.Haven`t figured out how  to join this back to the main  64 bit volume. May have to do a clean install
and start again ??  (gettig used to this now )
Unless you know of a way. Can I use disk management and just expand volume of drive C by 200gb`s which use`s up unused space in old partition ?
cheers

[TheHalf™]

I'm not sure about using Disk Management with windows since I have never used that before, although the program PartitionMagic (earlier versions by PowerQuest) will do that for you.

TheHalf™

[chelseaman]

  cheers, disk management took less than 10 secs to expand "C" to full size of HD , easier than getting money out of billy.lol

ths

[chip!]

Well folks,figured how I will get around this I have several spare cases,mobo`s/processors etc and I will put together an XP rig for the games.This will give me something to do.

sure you dont want to try installing a 2nd harddrive first? we can help with the boot loader issue,   BUT, it would be helpful to have a 2nd PC with internet access in case you mess up the boot loader and need to get online to ask us for help!