How To Keep Windows Vista and Install Windows XP

Computer operating systems are a matter of choice. Each has pros and cons. In other words, depending on the programs you use, one operating system may be more beneficial than the other. If you already have Windows Vista on your computer's hard drive and would like to have Windows XP also installed, it can be done. You will be creating a dual boot. The level of ease/difficulty will depend on your computer knowledge. Your success will depend on your level of determination. This process is time-consuming and you should have ample time to troubleshoot as there is always the chance of problems occurring.

Before we begin, you must have a copy of Windows XP for installation purposes. You will also need free hard disk space of 20 gigs or more on the hard drive that contains Vista.

1. Let Windows Vista come up when your machine is powered on.  The windows icon is shown at bottom left of your screen. Open it and find Computer. A list of options should be visible. You will want to select Manage from these options.
2. Disk Manager should be chosen and select Drive C.  You should have an option called Shrink Volume and enter 20 gigs for free space as this changes your volume level to the specification needed.
3. You should now shut down your machine from the Windows icon button. Choose Restart from the pop-up. As the machine starts to shut down, insert your Windows XP CD into the CD Rom Drive on your machine. Press the space bar as it comes up again so that it will not launch Vista, but will boot up from the CD instead.
4. There should be prompts for you to follow in the wizard installation process from the CD. This is where in order for you to install Windows XP; a new partition has to be created for it. If you skip this step, the Windows XP Installer will do it automatically, but it's easier and in a cleaner state being done now. NTFS should be chosen here to tell the machine how to format the new partition.
5. Once the wizard has completed installation of Windows XP to the new partition that was created, check to be sure that it was not loaded to C hard drive partition.  If this happens, it could possibly replace current files and if that happens, the solution would be to re-install Windows Vista.
6. Once installation is complete, allow your computer to automatically reboot. If all goes well, a screen should be visible where you will have the choice to select which operating system to boot into. Your choices, of course, are now Windows Vista or Windows XP.

Remember, Windows XP should be installed on Drive D. Information can be shared among the drives. As a recommendation, I would not dabble much with each operating system's partition. This could be opening a can of worms, so to speak, and you wouldn't want your files to become flawed. It would be advisable; however, to store all files on a third drive which will share files of both installed operating systems, Windows Vista and Windows XP.