Can I install WinXP twice on the same TP?

[jhonyl]

Hi,
I had an idea to install WinXP again on my TP, and use the other copy for doing unsafe stuff that may trash the system. Do you know if installing the same copy of WinXP on the same laptop is possible?

[leo221]

Hi,
I had an idea to install WinXP again on my TP, and use the other copy for doing unsafe stuff that may trash the system. Do you know if installing the same copy of WinXP on the same laptop is possible?

sure, install on another partation is always recommanded. besure to ghost an image.

[jdhurst]

Be careful with SP2. I have put the recovery disks onto a spare hard drive temporary to convert from one drive to the other. As of SP1, I could boot either drive. As of SP2, booting the main system rendered the ultra bay system inoperative. As I was testing, nothing was lost. ... JD Hurst

[jhonyl]

How about installing the second WinXP on the same partition but into a different directory? Is that possible?

[Nolonemo]

No. I'm not even sure you can do two XP installs to separate partitions without using a third party boot manager.

BTW, unless you are into sotware testing or something, this seems like overkill, and dual partitions might not even solve your problem.

For example, I have a dual boot system with Win98 (for one legacy app that won't run under 2kor XP) and XP, each on its own partition. Win98 is installed on the C: drive and XP on the D: drive. I have had a number of software installs under XP write stuff to the C: drive, even though that's not the "system" drive.

If what you're worried about is something really trashing your XP install, how do you protect against a rogue install trashing your "safe" install. And if what you're worried about is trouble on a lesser order, i.e., a driver being overwitten by the install, then XP's restore point option should take care of that sufficiently (in conjunction with periodic full images of you system, which you should do anyway to protect against catastrophic HD crashes).

In fact, I use XP's restore point feature all the time to "demo" software on my TP. If I'm not going to keep the program, I just roll back to my pre-install restore point and it's as if it never had been installed.

One final thing, if you are talking about a desktop system, put a removable hard drive caddy into the box, and set it up with two hard drives in caddies. Swap out the drives depending on if you a doing a test install or not.

[Bob Collins]

Most likely you can install XP again to the same partition, but to what end? Many items will install into the same default directories, like C:\Program Files, that you cannot adjust during the install of the OS. So, if XP install 1 is okay, but you are running the XP install 2 and it gets some broken item in a common area, both XP installs will suffer.

That is one of the big complaints of Windows, how it installs so many things into so many places with no control from you.

I think the boot manager will be okay with it, but it prolly won't help you much to do that, install twice that is.

It was an old-timers trick with NT Server to install it twice on two partitions. Bring one up to current SP and the like but leave it alone for damage control if the normally used install suffers. Same troubles with common stuff, but not as much common stuff as XP has....

YMMV, good luck

[jdhurst]

If you really want to test and really want to do it correctly and safely, then get a copy of VMware and build an XP machine in there. You need a separate licence to do it legally. But VMware does isolate the machine and it will not interact with the host. I use Windows 2000 (I have the license) and Windows 98 for testing concepts. I can make a copy, test, and then discard the copy if I am not happy with the results. .... JD Hurst

[jhonyl]

VMware is nice for testing stuff, but I wouldn't want to use it for my main OS. So my main OS can still be compromised. If the main OS is compromised then the VMware is also compromised. Say you get a Trojan that can spy on your keyboard activity, it would send to someone all the things you type.


I am not sure if a second copy of XP would work and if the Trojan wouldn't compromise it too. Maybe the best thing to do is to work from a live CD when passing sensitive information.

[Edward Mendelson]

I have two copies of XP on two different partitions on a ThinkPad 600X. One installation was getting messed up, so I made room for another partition, installed XP to the new partition, and have been switching between them (Windows automatically added the second install to the boot menu) to copy stuff out of the old one into the new one.

Absolutely no reason that I can see why you can't install XP on two different partitions.

It actually *is* possible to install it twice to the same partition, but you have to do a lot of advance planning and maintenance to make it work the way you want it to, and it certainly isn't worth the effort. This thread is about someone who did it inadvertently.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operati ... 53794.html

[Kyocera]

The thread you posted requires a paid subscription to view the reply. That web site always comes up in every google search I have ever done for a problem fix, that is the hook, then you have to pay to get the answer. MS newsgroups are free and are very helpful.

[Edward Mendelson]

Actually, you *don't* need a subscription to view the reply - just scroll down below the part that says you'll need the subscription, and you'll see the reply. It's very strange that they put that big "you need a subscription" notice up when in fact all the replies are just below it, but it's what they do...!

(The reply in this case doesn't tell you anything, but it shows that you can ignore that big notice in other threads.)