Can I run 2 Windows OS on one laptop?

[Londoner]

Hi,
to begin with, I am rather pleased to have won a new laptop on an ebay auction. I won this: SONY VAIO AR51 M LAPTOP (AR51M) 17", 2GB, 320GB, Bluray - it's only 3months old, still under warranty, seller has hundreds of feedback and still has 100% positive. His description was very detailed. I paid £580 and thislaptop is £1200+ new. A good deal, I'm sure you'll all agree.

ok, so here is my question: the laptop has vista installed - as all new laptops seem to. My current laptop (see my signature for spec) has XP installed. I also have a spare copy of XP from my old, defunct, desktop.

The thing is, I do alot of website marketing and have alot of scripts and programs which help with various small, and large, tasks. All run fine with XP - but I do not know if they will all run on Vista. So, first of all - does everything run on Vista?

If Vista will not run these programs and scripts then I will need to have XP installed on thisnew laptop -my idea, if necessary, was to install both Operating Systems - is that possible?

If not, then I may have to downgrade the laptop to XP - but will that disable some of the Sony Vaio functionality?

Thanks for reading, any advice or suggestions are received with thanks,
Phil

[bailey]

yes you can, but the problem in that the oldest os must be installed first, then the next newest, that may be a problem .

[shadowpr]

What you want o do is called dual booting. It's fairly common.

This is how to set it up: http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_v...step_guide.htm

The only thing I would do first though, is make sure that you can get the xp drivers from Sony's website so that you know everything will work right.

[Londoner]

Originally Posted by shadowpr What you want o do is called dual booting. It's fairly common. This is how to set it up: http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_v...step_guide.htm The only thing I would do first though, is make sure that you can get the xp drivers from Sony's website so that you know everything will work right.

The perfect reply - thank you.

Phil