Windows/IT nerds - XP on Win7 dualboot help needed

[Miami]

Ok, so basically, I had my old uni/work laptop stolen, replaced with a new HP Pavilion that came pre-installed with Win7 premium - so no XP mode.

Usual story, I have a few work/uni-specific softwares that arent really optimised for Win7, need XP to run them properly. As it turns out, running a dual-boot setup with XP on a separate partition when Win7 is installed first isnt as straightforward as the opposite scenario, which I would consider mysef competent at.

Any of the IT nerds on here who have done an XP dual-boot like this, and would be willing to either give me a clearly written guide on successfully getting it up and running, or would be willing to do it for me (I'll make it worth your time of course). I just cant afford to have this new lappy offline for any time at all really, so I'm not interested in giving it a go and then having to sort out issues myself.

Also, if XP is running on a separate partition in a dual-boot setup, and I use a cloning software like ShadowProtect to take a backup image, am I able to reinstate that XP image onto the separate partition only - and not affect my Win7 partition/registry etc?

[satch]

Whilst not able to help as i didnt need to go down that path eventually, have you considered compatibility mode ?

Am able to run all my legacy XP apps so far using it.

[DanWA]

you can download xp-mode from microsoft website

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

[Alt_F4]

Whilst not able to help as i didnt need to go down that path eventually, have you considered compatibility mode ?

Am able to run all my legacy XP apps so far using it.
+1... shit I even got starcraft running on my x64 win7, and that game is 12 years old.

I'd run virtual pc apps before fucking around with dual boots, it gets real old when you have to constantly swap.

[INSINR8R]

For a while I was running Vista on C: and Win7 on a separate partition. It saved my desktop but i couldn't access the programs that were on C: drive, so changed the file locations of everything to its C: Drive location as when you partition, the OS changes the destination to the new Drive.

The programs you may be able to find updates for? A lot of my stuff needed to be updated of course, as I ended up installing Win7 as my only OS.

I found that anything you saved on your new partition did not affect the other. I was able to run Vista without anything on the other partition to interrupt and vice versa.

[Bridantay]

instead of dual boot as its a pain to get XP to recognise the new sata you would be better off going down the virtual road, vmware or MS vitual

[Miami]

Yeah, I'll have a look at the XP compatibility mode. Wont really be a case of constantly swapping between dual boots, more just a case of xp during day and win7 at night.

Main issue is that some of the software I'm using for uni requires a xp reinstall every now and again (say every 30-60 days ;) ) so a dual-boot scenario would be nice :)

[DanWA]

Well i'm doing tech support at the moment where every pc is still shitty xp so the way i got around being able to remember every little menu etc but still being able to run Windows 7 with Office 2007 was to install that pack i gave you the link for, works a tread... only gave the virtual 256mb ram to and still hums along...

Re-installing is much easier in a virtual scenario... window7 will hum away and you just recreate a blank xp... doesnt take long at all!