Originally Posted by
lensman
Remember that the OP mentioned that this is for a laptop, so downgrading to Vista might mean a serious search for XP compatible drivers and such.
Obviously, this wouldn't be an issue in a virtualized XP environment.
If you can tell us, what kind of business app is it that isn't running under Vista?
Answers to questions (asked or not):
1) The laptop is a Dell Latitude E5400, with a Core 2 Duo P8400, 4 Gb RAM, 160 Gb 7200 RPM HD, Vista Business 32-bit. I gave it as a gift to my daughter. She wanted Vista (bored with XP?). I've enjoyed playing with it - it's fast, light, and gets 5-6 hours from the 6-cell battery (she didn't want the 9-cell, too heavy).
2) The applications requiring XP are a) a Cisco VPN client, b) an in-house built FoxPro app that she must post to, and mostly c) a corporate IT group that requires XP in house, and this laptop will spend lots of time in house.
3) The Dell is sold with Vista or with XP Pro, and Dell has all the XP drivers on their website.
Originally Posted by
Dubai Stu
I tried to install Parallel workstations on a Vista box running home premium and the program refused to install saying it was not compatible.
I downloaded and installed Parallels yesterday. Did not have any problems installing it. It did not, however, solve some of the problems with the Cisco VPN client. So we shrunk the Vista partition and went the dual boot route. Left the Parallels Workstation installed, as it might be useful.
Originally Posted by
elCheapoDeluxe
This is very, very, very rare with a virtual machine unless you are talking about something that needs advanced access to something like the graphics subsystem. I have found games that would not run on an XP virtual machine, but I have yet to find a business app that wouldn't. YMMV - but I'd guess the OP is pretty safe with the expectation that running a virtual machine will be fine.
Personally, I like to use the virtual machine in reverse manner. Have XP installed as the primary OS, and only deal with Vista when I need to @:-)
Agreed. XP first, then Vista is the way to go. Much simpler, as you don't have to do a Vista repair to fix the Vista bootloader.
But never one to take the easy route, we left the Vista partition first and installed XP in the space freed by the Vista shrinking operation. What an experience! First, I got a BSOD at the Loading Windows stage of the install. Thinking it was a bad CD, I found another and got the same results. Researched it online to discover it needed drivers for the SATA HD. You know - press F6 at the beginning of the install to supply drivers for the disk. Only one problem - no floppy drive, and the F6 process requires a floppy.
More research revealed a freeware utility called nLite that allows you to add drivers, patches, even service packs to a Windows distro, creating an image file (ISO) which you then use to burn a new Windows CD. Used that for installing and had no problems.
Actually had fun - it was a lengthy project, completed from the living room couch while flipping between bowl games and Iron Chef America reruns.