eCabinets and the Intel i7 processors

[Paul Huff]

I just ordered a computer that has an Intel Core i7 920 cpu with DDR3 memory and Vista 64 bit home premium OS. Now I know that the OS is not going to work out.

But here is my question? It will have two Sata-II drives and was considering installing XP Pro 32 bit on one to make a duel boot system or just using eCabinets on my old system and waiting for the day that eCabinets works on say Winows 7.

I know eCabinets would run better on the new system if it can work the the new CPU and Ram.

I have been reading all night about dual booting Vista and XP, not easy but can be done.

Any advice here would be great.

[Gary Puckett]

Paul,

The system at this point in time will run more efficient with XP, but it will run with Vista.

Also version 6 is going to be coming out and there may be some new features.

I am running Vista 64

Gary

[DanEpps]

Making a dual boot system with Vista installed first is, from what I read, not for the faint of heart. The caveat here is that everything I found on the subject was creating a single-drive, multi-partition dual boot system.

Its been a while since I've done this, but dual booting with two drives should be fairly simple (famous last words). When you boot from the XP install CD you should have an opportunity to choose which disk to install it on.

XP gets its list of operating systems from C:\boot.ini but Vista uses a different method. For Vista you have to use BCDedit to add/modify boot entries.

See this information from MSDN: Boot Options in Windows Vista.

[Paul Huff]

Yes I have read that if I install XP to a system with Vista aready present that I will have to fix the bootloader to get Vista to work again. I have read that it is easy to install Vista after XP but not crazy about about removing Vista to do that.

I will wait an try things out before diving into to anything. My PC will not ship until May 15 anyway. It is being built right now. I started out trying build up a system with a cheaper cpu but keep finding that the price was getting too close to the cost of an i7 system so I finally just went that way instead. It will be a huge step forward from this 1.8 Athlon Compaq that I have been using for the last 5 years.

[DanEpps]

Fixing the Vista bootloader after installing XP is pretty easy as long as you have the Vista install CD.

Look at this (steps 12-15): http://www.ehow.com/how_2131701_dual-boot-vista-xp.html The first 11 steps are instructions for installing XP on the same drive as Vista and don't apply to your situation.

After fixing the bootloader you will have to use BCDEdit to add XP to the boot list.

Here is a good explanation of the Vista bootloader from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/ti ... vista.mspx

[Joe Dusel]

Yeah, I think the best "dual boot" solution is to have two computers with one of them setup in the recommended configuration.

Joe

[Paul Huff]

Yes Joe you are probably right about that. But I know how I am. The new one will be like candy for a while. It will be hard to pull myself away to use the old one that was really never that good for eCabinets. I just had a fair video card that made it work.

[Paul Huff]

Thanks for all the links and help Dan. I think I could set up a dual boot but I have read about one other problem that might come up. Some programs that I might install into the XP system might try to write files to the C: drive where Vista will be. I am not to sure what to do about that.

One more thing that makes me hesitate to do this is that Windows 7 is very close.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

[DanEpps]

...Some programs that I might install into the XP system might try to write files to the C: drive where Vista will be. I am not to sure what to do about that...

Ummm...eCabinets for one.

...One more thing that makes me hesitate to do this is that Windows 7 is very close.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

RC1 is going public tomorrow (May 5, 2009) and all indications are that Windows 7 will probably released for the holiday season.