Vista and xxxxxxx dual boot

J

Josh

Skilled
Windows Vista (final release version) has the following new quirks
1. Vista installer requires that no partition be active (or bootable) on the harddisk! If an active partition is found the Vista installer simply says something like "This Volume is not suitable for installing Windows" and refuses to proceed!!

2. Vista requires that the Windows partition remain active in order to boot.

3. Vista requires that the Vista bootloader be present in the MBR in order to boot. If you put any other bootloader in the MBR (like Grub stage1), Vista will refuse to boot saying that winload.exe is corrupt. This is because Vista's loader checks for a disk signature in the MBR! More info is available here: Vista’s MBR Disk Signature. - Windows BBS. Microsoft talks about it in a whitepaper giving some weird reasons: OEMBoot_Vista - Google Search.

4. The boot.ini file has been replaced by adding yet another entry in the Registry called the Boot Configuration Data with a CLI utility called bcdedit.exe to allow fiddling with the BCD.
To my knowledge the Beta and RC1 versions of Vista did not have restriction #3, but it is present in the final release candidate version.
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The Random Bit Bucket
 
I have the final RTM installed with XP and everything is just the same as RC1 in terms of booting.

The good news on the other hand is that Vista RTM runs faster/quicker than RC1 did, this is on a single core A64!
 
No, I haven't installed anything. Just Vista and its graphic drivers with some utilities like Powerstrip etc and a game or two. I haven't installed anything for booting.
 
3. Vista requires that the Vista bootloader be present in the MBR in order to boot. If you put any other bootloader in the MBR (like Grub stage1), Vista will refuse to boot saying that winload.exe is corrupt. This is because Vista's loader checks for a disk signature in the MBR! More info is available here: Vista’s MBR Disk Signature. - Windows BBS. Microsoft talks about it in a whitepaper giving some weird reasons: OEMBoot_Vista - Google Search.
Click to expand...

If this is true, then it looks like another Microsoft's dirty ploy to push other OSs aside
 
lol intresting thing is that i was fiddling with the BCDedit today and changed stuff on the boot loader and the damn thing won't boot stating what is given above.

I had to reinstall vista to get it working again (i was left with only a vista DVD and a blank screen and i dont know whether vista has a 'fixmbr' and fixboot' equivalent.

@Illusion

U dont install Vista boot loader,it gets installed automatically when ure installing the OS.
 
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