Install Windows 2000 on a Windows Vista Home OEM 32-bit machine multi boot

I have a HP Pavilion Entertainment PC which came Windows Vista 32-bit OEM pre-installed, Home Premium. I want to keep the Windows Vista, but I also want to install Windows 2000 Professional on the same machine.



1. If possible, I would like to do this without erasing the current Windows Vista installation.

2. I am ready to prepare Recovery DVDs before I go ahead.

3. There are no personal documents or files on the computer yet.

4. The laptop has a single hard drive, with more than enough space for Windows Vista and much more.



5. I have a DVD that came along with the laptop, which says, Windows Anytime Upgrade to Vista. It does not have any license key printed on it nor do I have a separate license key on paper.

Apart from this DVD, I do not have any other separate Windows Vista Home Premium Installation DVD.



6. If required, I am ready to use tools like EasyBCD mentioned in some discussions.



What is the best way to go ahead with this ? I know the standard Microsoft instruction is to "first install earliest version and then the later versions", but in this case, I want to do the other way round.



If required, I am ready to overwrite Windows Vista with Windows Professional and then install Windows Vista as multi-boot, but where would I install Windows Vista from ? Will the Windows Anytime Upgrade DVD be enough to re-install Vista as multi-boot on Windows 2000, after the I overwrite Windows Vista with Windows 2000 ? Will the recovery DVDs be helpful or enough in any way for the mutli-boot installation.

 

The "simplest" way (if you want to call it that) would be to do the following:

1) Shrink the current Vista OS partition and otherwise make space for Win 2K

2) Install Win2K to the new space

3) Use easyBCD to create boot entry for Win 2K



If you wipe the drive and install Win 2K first, while it is true that, when you then install Vista, it will "find" Win 2K and create a boot entry for it, that's going to be a lot more work because you will have to make install media for Vista. That's usually hidden in a "recovery" partition on the hard drive, and even then, often in compressed format. Even if your HP came with CD/DVD media, those are probably only "restore" disks and will completely reformat and restore your hard drive to the factory condition -- including the "recovery" partition. Doesn't sound like what you want to do.



Also, as far as I know, the anytime upgrade can not do a clean install without Vista already resident on the machine.



Finally, since you have a preinstalled OEM version, it undoubtedly has some add-ons, drivers, and other customization provided by the OEM -- most or all of which would be absent from a retail or "generic" OEM Vista DVD.



However, if you were able to obtain an OEM Vista DVD, you "should" be able to install Vista afresh because the activation is buried in the BIOS on the motherboard. (I say "should" because I've not tried this on a preinstalled box so do not know for sure that it will work.) You would then just be faced with obtaining drivers for the hardware -- and Windows Update might possibly be able to find all of them.



So ... my advice is to make minimal changes to the Vista install, and wrestle only with the Win 2K install.

 

Thank you very much for the help. Will try and get back.

Any tricks on how to create the "Instal Media" from out of the "Recovery Partition", which you mention as hidden somewhere ? I am unlikely to take that route though.

Will try, the simplest route you suggested.

In the meanwhile, someone has mentioned at the MS TechNet forum, that HP Pavilion Entertainment Notebook is not compatible with Windows 2000. Thats a new angle. Will checkthat out.

 

OEMs that provide only recovery partitions provide either a way to boot to that partition to do an automatic recovery, or they provide a utility on the PC to generate recovery media using that partition.



The first is usually done by pressing a function key in response to a text message displayed during machine boot. It's typically F12, but it varies by vendor and machine. If this is case, it may be that your OEM does not provide a way to generate recovery media.



You will have to look through your OEM-provided documentation to see which is the case.