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Have built new computer core I7 870 with 8 GBs of ram. Planning on dual boot install. I have many programs on XP Pro and have the hard drive with both XP program and application programs from my previous computer. I have converted this HD to SATA from IDE and plan on using it as a second HD in this new computer. Should I do a dual install in two partitions of XP Pro (32 bit) and W7 Home Premium 64 bit or would it be better to do a dual install of W7 32 bit and W7 64 bit. I purchased the retail version of both XP Pro and W7 so have the disks for clean install of both programs?

Thanks

BobW

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Dual booting 32bit win 7 and 64bit win 7 is a bit redundant since anything the 32bit version can run will also run in win 7. For that matter, most of your XP programs will run in win 7 64bit... – Trezoid Sep 25 '10 at 22:35
@Trezoid - the 64 bit version cannot easily run older 16 bit programs without virtualisation... granted hardly anyone uses them, but should still be said that not everything will run in the x64 that will run in x86 – William Hilsum Sep 25 '10 at 22:52
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2 Answers

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Honestly, as Trezoid said in a comment, I would only install once - compatibility is great and you should not have any problems.

However, if you are keen on going down the dual boot route, I would advise installing one, then disconnecting the hard drive and installing the other. You can then select in the BIOS which ever one you want as primary and you can either switch in BIOS or just have a single key to press (e.g. F12) that will allow you to change which hard drive to boot from.

I honestly believe that you will end up only using one OS, however, with a computer that powerful, if you really need to run XP, your machine will be able to virtualise it without even breaking a sweat!.

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I'd suggest only installing w7-64 unless it turns out that you actually have something that won't run in it. At that point putting your XP install in a VM is probably the way to go unless you need to do something very performance intensive.

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Thanks Dan. As I told Wil I will try to see if the programs will all run under W7 64 bit as that would be much simpler. Right now I am having trouble getting the computer to do the initial boot. A couple of other good Samaritans like both of you have given me a couple of ideas to try and narrow down the culprit. I have been messing with computers since the 027 punch card days and they can sure be frustrating devils. Thanks again. – Robert Wooley Sep 26 '10 at 23:04
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