I want to test drive Windows Vista but I don't want to trash my Windows XP installation just yet.  Any suggestions as to how I can try Vista without destroying Windows XP?

There are three "tricks" that I've tried that each work.  They all take a slightly different approach and vary in hassle level.

• Image your XP partition and restore it later
  One way to test Vista is to safely back up your XP partition onto another drive or an external hard drive, then install Vista on the partition.  When you want to recover the XP partition you can reinstall it over the Vista installation.
  This works well but you are relying on having a valid backup.
• Switch boot drives in the BIOS and install Vista on the new boot drive
  Most new PCs now allow you to control which drive the system boots up from.  It's just a matter of entering the BIOS and selecting a new drive from the list.  Then you can install Vista on this new drive.
  If you have more than one hard drive then this is a viable option - you just need to make sure that you keep track of which drive has XP on it and make sure you don't overwrite it by accident!  When you want to go back to XP swap the boot drive again.
• Switch hard drives
  Open up your PC, remove the drive that has XP installed on it and replace this with another drive.  Put the drive housing XP in a safe place.

Hope this helps!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 16:23 and is filed under Questions from Visitors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.