dude.. your OS is 9 years old

well, it is still working.
new os are over rated.

Not if you want DirectX10

Kinda like complaining you can't run it on your 9 years old hardware or on Win98

Actually Deimos has a GPU that can do Direct X11.

hardware is different yo.

directx10, directx11 is just marketing gimmick to force people to buy new OS.

win7 is okay.
i dun recall vista being better than xp though.

and as mentioned by kianweic, i do have a dx11 capable card.

my hardware being:

amd phenom ii x4 945 3.0ghz
3gb ddr2 667mhz
sapphire ati hd5750 512mb gddr5

---

Added on June 7, 2010, 2:58 pmanyway, i have no problem setting up win7, just lazy to do it.
not really like it since my netgear wifi usb stick does not have drivers for win7.


while we are on that topic, may i ask a question related to os?
at the moment, i set my bios to boot the hard disk (xp) first so xp boots up.

but if say if i set my bios to boot another hard disk, can i install win7 on that hard disk?


note, hard disk, not partitions.

This post has been edited by Deimos Tel`Arin: Jun 7 2010, 02:58 PM

Haha, I think I went into that server once a few days ago. I thought I would be fighting zombies, but how come I didnt meet any?

You just need to partition your current HDD.

And install Windows 7 in another partition.

Then config a multiboot thingie.

that's all.

multi boot does not work.
the last time i did that, i thought i cannot boot back to my win xp forever liao.

i have like 3 hard disk in my casing now.
i would want a new os to be installed on a different hard disk, not in same hard disk, different partition.


the method i mentioned, is it do able?
2 of the hard disk got primary partitions, primary partitions means boot-able partitions right?

Thing is, your Bios will only boot on one Hd at the time, it does not check for primary partition and will not by itself give you a choice (at least to my knowledge)
I would say it's possible but you would have to change the Master Slave settings each time you want to switch.

ie: let's say you have Hd1 and Hd2 as your 2 Hd.

On Hd1 you want to install XP
On Hd2 you want to install Vista

1) Make Hd1 as Master and Hd2 as Slave, make sure the dvd player is the first bootable device

2) Install XP on Hd1 as usual using dvd

3) Cold restart, in Bios change Hd2 as new Master and Hd1 as slave, still make sure dvd is first bootable device

4) Now put your Vista dvd and you should be able to install it on Hd2

5) So now each time you want to switch you would need to go back to Bios and change Master/Slave settings depending on which OS you want to boot.


Overall I find that very complicated for very little advantage (since both Vista and XP use NTFS).

I know someone who did that for older Os when he wanted both Win98 and Xp and since 98 can't read NTFS, he did like that. No idea about newer OS or easier methods

I would do the "newest" OS last though as XP might wipe out Vista's boot info since it does not detect it as valid.

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Jun 7 2010, 03:37 PM

ooh thanks Gormaz so it is do-able eh?
but yeah must tweak bios settings every time need to switch OS.

nah vista sucks, bad example you gave there.
replace vista with win7 and you got a good example.

master / slave settings?
you mean boot order is it?

i thought that only applies to IDE cables? and with jumpers set to cable select.

SATA cables still got master / slave thingies?

---

Added on June 7, 2010, 3:38 pmxp wipe out vista boot info? what does that mean?

This post has been edited by Deimos Tel`Arin: Jun 7 2010, 03:38 PM

The usual method that always in my head is to install both OS on a single HD, but different partition.

Now that's going far from a Steam topic ^^

I "think" it could be doable but really I have no personal experience in doing it, only time I saw it done was on Win98/XP double boot.

And yes, Master/Slave was the time of IDE (no SATA at that time).
Right now I am not sure how SATA handle master/Slave actually, I got only one HD on my own machine.

But basically you have to be able to tell the Bios to boot from Hd1 or H2 at will because by default it should choose the same one all the time, the Bios by itself will not (as far as I know) automatically detect you have 2 Os on 2 Hd and propose you a nice menu with the options.

By Xp wipe out vista info, I, again according to the Win98/XP thing I saw, know the guy had to install Win98 (the older OS) first and then XP.
Otherwise the Win98 was kinda wiping out the booting info of XP as it did not recognize it, while XP (since it was developed after 98) was able to recognize the Win98 info and not wipe it by add to it.

I just do not see exactly what would be the real advantages for you and it might not be worth the trouble.
I would poke on google if I were you to see if other people did something like that with this particular combination of OS, my info are not exactly up to date

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Jun 7 2010, 03:44 PM

ah. thanks johnny for feedback and merci Gormaz for the comprehensive instructions!

well, real advantage of doing so. i guess it would be:

- can try out dx10 or dx11 games, see dx10, dx11 graphics
- retaining save files for [games for windows live] pc games in win xp
  (gta4, gta: eflc, dow2, dow2 chaos rising, sf4, etc)

another advantage would be i can just take out the hard disk and put it into another rig, and it would be boot-able straight away. yes?

This post has been edited by Deimos Tel`Arin: Jun 7 2010, 03:54 PM

Yes, Deimos. Time to come over the dark side.

Embrace Windows 7 64 bit edition.

bah. later. perhaps.
maybe if deus ex: human revolution dx11 only then i will install win7

i only got 3gd ddr2 667mhz so 32 bit is more than enough for me.

Btw, it's been sometime that I posted this on the steam's forum.
I need some opinions here.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/show...d.php?t=1254051

That seems like a good idea.

Perhaps we can write an email to Steam support and ask them to include this in the next update.

eh johnny you want our opinions in here or over there?

well i support your idea and it would be nice if such function existed.

You could do all of this using 2 different partitions yar, no real need to install on 2 different disks which make it much more complicated

As for booting straight away on another box, technically yes but if the hardware is very different you could have issues.
And you would need to reinstall all the drivers for the new hardware obivously.

As for the suggestion of temptation134, yar, that could be nice

Eh, dayem. I didn't know some games include installation limits now.