Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mandriva Linux 2007
February 12th, 2007Have just finished up finalising the configuration of my new computer setup, something that I mentioned here. As I like to use both Windows and Linux, I have traditionally had a dual-boot system. However, once I got my hands on a copy of Windows Vista, I opted to go for a tri-boot system, consisting of Linux, Windows XP and Windows Vista. This is because I realised that since it would take some time to familiarise myself sufficiently with Windows Vista, I would continue to do the bulk of my productive work with my comfortable Windows XP setup.
That being said, for the remainder of this post, I will briefly relate my procedure for this tri-boot setup. Firstly, the three operating systems I am using specifically are Mandriva Linux 2007 Free, Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista Business.
It is easiest to first install Windows XP, followed by Windows Vista then Linux. Following this order will result in the Linux bootloader appearing first upon computer startup. The default menu option will be Linux. If you want to change this to Windows, here is what you do:
- Go into Linux
- Go into the root account
- Edit the /etc/lilo.conf file. There you will see a line that indicates where the default bootup option is set. It should be something like default=”linux”; this should be changed to default=”windows”
- Save and exit the file you have just edited. Then run the file /sbin/lilo
- Reboot your computer and the Linux bootloader default should now be changed to Windows
When you select the Windows option from the Linux bootloader menu, you will be presented with the Windows Vista bootloader menu and see that you have two options.
- Earlier Version of Windows
- Microsoft Windows Vista
where 1 stands for the Windows XP installation.
If you want to change the default Windows installation to load up to Windows XP, or change any of the other editable Vista bootloader settings for that matter, then you will need to do the following:
- Go into Windows Vista
- Go to Start-> Programs -> Accessories
- Right click on ‘Command Prompt’ and select ‘Run as administrator’, which should bring you to a command prompt
- At the command prompt, type ‘bcdedit’, which will give you a list. You should see an item titled ‘Windows Legacy OS Loader’, which has a description of ‘Earlier Version of Windows’. Note the identifier for this item, which is probably going to be {ntldr}
- After you have the ID, type ‘bcdedit /default ID‘, in my example, this would be ‘bcdedit /default {ntldr}’
That is it. If you have any questions, do post a comment. Also, these two pages describe in greater detail all this stuff:
Alternatively, you can use this seemingly nice little utility, which I have not as yet actually used: VistaBootPro.
Well, that is it for now. My next task is to get my wireless PCI adapter working under Linux, something which is notoriously not straightforward.
