Hi, On one of my desptop's want to install Windows 7 but getting restricted due to two of my softwares. Currently its installed with XP Pro SP3. What should be the right choice out of the two? Dual Boot System or Windows 7 XP Mode Desktop Config: AMD Athlon II x4 635 Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H Kingston 2x2GB DDR3 Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB Pls assist?
Depends...which two applications are stopping you? *curious* Dual boot can be a bit tricky to set up right and you'd have to constantly reboot between both OSes depending on what you want to do...it takes more disk space (an extra partition)...and I think, I think there's also a problem with an XP system having access to an NTFS partition used by a Windows 7 system: namely that all restore points on the 7 system will get deleted. I'm not sure under which circumstances this happens, but someone else will know... On the other hand, XP mode is only available in Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate & Enterprise editions. If you're thinking about Basic or Home Premium you won't get XP mode with that. You could just go ahead and install 7 to dualboot with XP and get used to 7 for a while...then once you're comfortable with it and got XP mode running, you could delete the XP partition.
If xp mode isn't available for your SKU you could always use virtualbox or vmware player. (and if you're not scared of k*yg*ns use vmware workstation 8). Another way is using anytime upgrade to go to ultimate, I think it only needs an ultimate key if your system is slic-activated already. It indeed depends on the apps you want to run on it. Thinks like cad software won't run that good on vms.
Thanks for your reply. One of them is DOS oriented & the other is an accounting software. Both of them are used less frequently. Also, I have W7 Professional & 1TB HDD with three partitions. Will it possible to install W7 on 2nd or 3rd partition, with XP Pro SP3 installed on C: Also, can I install W7 x64 side by side? As of now, I have XP Pro SP3 installed on that system.