All that work ultimately leaves you with a PC running what is essentially an out-of-date operating system. XP is history now, just as Windows 98 was seven years ago when XP arrived. New products are being tuned for Vista, and it won't be long before legacy XP support disappears. But what if you have some essential application or device that sim¬ply won't work with Vista, yet you don't want to downgrade?

One approach is to install XP alongside Vista, using a dual-boot configuration. You'll need a second hard drive, or a second partition on your primary drive, on which to install XP. Begin by booting off an XP Setup disc as explained earlier, and then install the operating systcm on that sccond drive. When that's done, don't panic when Vista won't start; all you need to do is to reinstall Vista's boot manager. Just boot off your Vista Setup disc, click Next on the first page, and then, on the Install Windows page, click Repair your computer. Thereafter, you'll be prompted to choose between XP and Vista each time you turn on your Pc.

The other option, and a good one if performance isn't too important to you, is to use a virtual machine, such as Micro¬soft Virtual PC (free from /virtualpc) or VMware Workstation to run XP in a window from within Vista. To set it up in Virtual PC, click New, and then use the New Virtual Machine Wizard to create a virtual machine (below). When prompted, choose Windows XP as the platform and specify at least 512MB of RAM.



Complete the wizard, and click Start to open the new virtual machine. Insert your Windows XP Setup CD, and from the CD menu, select Use Physical Drive D:. Now you'll be able to install XP as though drive D: were a separate com¬puter. When you're done, you'll have a functional virtual XP PC that you can start from your Vista desktop any time you need it; you can even copy and paste between both platforms and share files over its virtual network interface. For more of the nitty-gritty on running a virtual machine, see our recent Solutions story "Windows in a Window".