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Thread: More than one O/S on one computer

  1. #1
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    More than one O/S on one computer

    Hey Ya' All,
    I believe I read in the rules on a OEM operating system, that I could use more than one operating system on the same computer....
    Any one here know if I can have three O/S on seperate Disks and use the bios to change boot order to use another O/S ?
    Thanx
    TW

  2. #2
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    You can do that as long as you own the licenses, but why would you want to?

    Did you look into using Virtual Machines instead?

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    Hi Midknyte,
    I assume you are asking if I purchased a oem cd o/s........yes i have and I also tried ms server however chose not to use it on this computer..........
    I surely would like to look into other options also ...
    I like the ability to use My printmaster software without having another computer for it.....
    I like window 7 but a some of software is not up gradeable from XP and windows 8.... I want to work with and learn the use of......

  4. #4
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    VMs are useful for testing or learning purposes. VirtualBox is free.
    http://lifehacker.com/5204434/the-be...ith-virtualbox

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    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    If you have Win7 Pro or Ultimate, you can also use XP Mode.
    http://arstechnica.com/information-t...ndows-xp-mode/

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    Wow.....have not tried the xp mode........thanx I will look into that too...I always try to purchase the pro ver of operating systems....

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    Hi Midknyte,
    Thanks for the VM info I will try this only I will have to get a much larger HDD then it is a clean setup again........so when I have time......Question....Would it make more sence to use the Win8 as the host and VM Guest the others ? And I only have a AMD Quad core...should I upgrade to 6 or 8 ?..........but my board may not support that........hmm.
    thanx for the reply
    later
    tw

  8. #8
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    I will have to get a much larger HDD then it is a clean setup again
    The guest OS files can be on a separate drive from the host.

    Would it make more sence to use the Win8 as the host and VM Guest the others
    I would use Win7 64-bit. You said you were going to learn about Win8. If that's the case, why would you make that the host? Do you have a touchscreen? If not, you may not care for Win8. A lot of people are trying to revert to "desktop mode", which is not much different than Win7.

    And I only have a AMD Quad core...should I upgrade to 6 or 8 ?
    Quad should be fine. Do you plan on running all the VMs at the simultaneously all the time? The VM is not using CPU power if it's shut down.

    How much RAM do you have? That is another consideration. Again, the RAM wouldn't be used until you power up the VM.

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    And what motherboard do you have? Size of the powersupply? Actually the amount of ram you have may slow things down.

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    Hi Train,
    I have 12gig of ram and i believe it is a 650 watt OCZ psu........
    The way I understand , VM is like having partitions on the Host HDD eliminating the extra hard drives........I would only access one at a time unless because the Host would be active while using VM.....still I would like to give it a go ...it sounds interesting.....
    Thanx
    TW

  11. #11
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    VM is like having partitions on the Host HDD eliminating the extra hard drives
    Not exactly. VM are files. You can put them on another partition or drive if you want.

    12GB is good.

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    Hey Midknyte,
    So put Vm files on another hdd........and accessing them using the Host resources....hmm
    ok.......so I can eliminate at least one HDD......but I have to have a good size hdd for two operating systems.......Can I use a backup of the other O/S to transfere to the Guest VM ? or would I have to set it up again ?
    TW

  13. #13
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    You don't have to put the VM files on another drive, but you can if you are short on space.

    Can I use a backup of the other O/S to transfere to the Guest VM ?
    Chances are you would need to reload. The HAL would be different on a VM than a standard system. All the hardware is virtualized, so copying a regular system to a VM would probably BSOD. It's like what would happen if you restore a backup on a different computer.

    I know there are converters for VMWare, but I'm not sure about Virtualbox.

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    Ok Midknyte,
    do you happen to know a short cut to all the security updates ........or is this going to be painful ?
    Thanx
    TW

  15. #15
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    Ok Midknyte,
    do you happen to know a short cut to all the security updates ........or is this going to be painful ?
    Thanx
    TW

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