I wanted to install Vista in a different partition while still keeping my XP for several reasons. Just in case something didn’t work and also in case I need it for a class or if someone had a question about I had to actually look at.

There are several reasons to upgrade to Vista. Vista is safer and more secure to use on the Internet than XP. User Account Control has received a bad rap, but it’s worth a little inconvenience to keep unauthorized programs you might get from the Internet or email from running and screwing up your computer.

Vista has been out for awhile and you can get some good deals on sites like ebay.

The best way to migrate slowly to Vista is to use a separate disk drive or partition you drive into different driver. This way you’re able to install Vista in one partition, while keeping XP in another partition and when you boot your computer, you choose which operating system you want to go into.
You need a boot manager and a partition manager. The best program for that is Bootitng. It has a great partition manager, a boot manager and an imaging program for making images of your partitions for backups and restores, all built into one great program.

Defrag

Before you partition your drive, you really need to defragment your drive to get the most free space on your drive. The best and fastest disk defragger is Vopt with a free trial. This way all of your free space is in one huge chunk instead of spread out in smaller chunks and useless to a partition.

If you want to use your old data with both operating systems, you need to put your data on a different drive or partition that is visible by both Vista and XP. It’s possible to move your My Documents folder to anywhere you want.

Redirect My Documents

After you create a partition for your data, copy your My Documents folder to the new drive. Then point your My Documents folder to the new drive by left clicking on your My Documents folder, then Target. If you need more help, see my post about Redirecting My Documents, complete with pictures.

It’s generally a good idea to keep your documents on a different drive than your operating system and applications to make backing up easier.

Right clicking on your My Documents folder allows you to tell Windows where your My Documents folder is, instead of just using the default on the same drive as Windows.

After creating your data partition, moving your data and redirecting your My Documents folder, go back and create a partition for Vista. A minimum of 20 gig is necessary for the install, but if you’re going to install programs like Office or anything else, partition something larger if you have the space.

There’s a great tutorial using Bootitng for copying your XP partition, then installing Vista as an upgrade on top of your new XP copy. I had so much trouble doing the upgrade to Vista. For some reason, during the upgrade process my laptop would just shut off. Part of it was a heat issue. Because of the constant running of the DVD player, hard drive and the processor creating heat, there was a serious heat buildup. I put a fan directly on the laptop to keep it cool, but it was still shutting after the install, but during the upgrade process.

I installed Vista as a completely new install, erasing XP and everything in that new partition. A new install is good, it’s like cleaning house. I get rid of all the programs I never use and only move the programs I still use and feel like it’s worth reinstalling into Vista. I still have the old programs in the original XP partition and I can still use or move them later if I need to.

Summary:

• Defrag your hard drive (Vopt)
• Partition a space for data
• Move your My Documents folder
• Partition a space for Vista
• Install Vista

Links:

Vopt

Bootitng

Cheap Windows Vista at Ebay