Installing Windows XP on a Computer with Other Operating Systems


If your computer already has a 32-bit version of Windows installed and you have at least two disk partitions defined, you can install a clean copy of Windows XP without troubling your presented Windows installation. At boot time, you choose your Windows version from a startup menu. Although this is typically called a dual-boot system, it’s more accurate to call it a multiboot configuration, because you can install multiple copies of Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

Having the capacity to choose your operating system at startup is useful if you have a program or device that simply won’t work in Windows XP. When you want to use the legacy program or device, you can boot into your other Windows version without too much fuss. This capability is also useful for software developers, who need to be able to test how their programs work under different operating systems.

For experienced Windows users, installing a second copy of Windows XP in its own partition can also be helpful as a way to experiment with a program or device driver that is not certified to be compatible with Windows XP without possibly compromising a working system. After you finish setting up the second, clean version of Windows XP, you’ll see an additional entry on the startup menu that corresponds to your new installation. (The newly installed version is the default menu choice; it runs automatically if 30 seconds pass and you don’t make a choice.) Experiment with the program or driver and see how well it works. If, after testing thoroughly, you’re satisfied that the program is safe to use, you can add it to the Windows XP installation you use every day. If it causes problems, you can remove the program or driver.

To add Windows XP to a system where a presented version of Windows is already installed, first make sure that you have an existing partition (or unformatted disk space) separate from the partition that contains the system files for your current Windows version.

The target partition can be a separate partition on the similar physical disk, or it can be on a different hard disk. If your system includes a single disk with a single partition used as drive C, you cannot safely create a multiboot system unless you add a new disk or use third party software such as PartitionMagic to shrink the presented partition and create a new partition from the free space. The new partition does not have to be empty; though, it should not have system files for another Windows installation.

Follow these steps to set up Windows XP on a multiboot system:

1 After starting your current Windows version, insert the Windows XP CD.

2 From the Welcome To Microsoft Windows XP menu, choose Install Windows XP.

If the Welcome menu doesn’t appear, CD AutoPlay is probably disabled on your computer. In that case, open the Run dialog box and type d:\i386 \Winnt32.exe (substitute the correct letter of your CD-ROM drive for d).

3 From the first Windows Setup dialog box, select New Installation (Advanced) from the Installation Type list. Click Next to continue.



4 When prompted, accept the End User License Agreement (EULA) and enter the 25-character product key.

5 In the Setup Options dialog box, click the Advanced Options button.



6 In the Advanced Options dialog box, select I Want To Choose The Install Drive Letter And Partition During Setup, as shown on the next page.



7 Click through the remaining steps of the wizard and allow the computer to restart. At that point, you will start in text-mode setup, where you can specify the disk and partition on which you want to install Windows XP.

The Setup program automatically handles details of adding the newly installed operating system to the startup menu.