installing windows xp as a secondary operating system with fedora as primary
 

hey guys dont get me wrong i do luv linux, but i do need windows tooo....what i have planned is to leave my linux on my box as the primary operating system with xp as the secondary op, anyone have any suggestions as to go about it or what problems i might encounter and to look out for i allready have the partitions set here is where iam getting my information from other wise i would not be able to do this lol hope anyone can help http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=196

Use VMWare to run XP under Linux. Avoid dual boot like the plague if you can.

Why? I dual-boot XP and FC1 just fine... My suggestion would be, if you can, wipe everything and install XP first but do your partitioning yourself. If I remember rightly, FC1 needed at least 5GB so I gave it like 10GB and left the rest to XP. After XP's set-up and such, then install Linux on the partition you made. If I remember correctly my install asked which OS you want to boot to more automatically (I think the default is to wait 5 seconds to choose with GRUB, but mine waits like 100 so I have to choose), so choose Linux there. Finish setting it up and you should be good to go.

Peace!

What if he wants to exchange data between XP and Fedora? Or run XP programs at the same time as Fedora programs? It is not that dual boot can't be made to work that makes it bad. It is its clumsiness that makes it bad. VMWare is also clumsy but it is better than dual boot. If luckystrikes7 can, he might want to use Windows 98 instead of Windows XP. Then, he can use Win4Lin in place of VMWare, and Win4Lin is definitely not clumsy. I should know since I use it.

I see your point. I never really thought about the possibility of running XP and Fedora programs at the same time... How do those programs work though? I still am a good bit of a n00b, so some stuff still eludes my understanding, but it seems like it wouldn't be able to offer full usability. Eg, how does it handle the registry and such?

ok i messed up now i need to remove grub and start all over
 

lol iam so bad i need to find out how to remover grub i tried to set the partitions but messed up along the way, now iam going to start clean any one know how to delete grub all i have is the windows xp cd

To XsuX:

Win4Lin sets up a simple generic virtual PC with 2 standard serial ports, 1 standard parallel port, a custom sound driver and network drives. Windows then "installs" on this "PC." All of this then allows Windows 9X and ME to be run under Linux just as if it were another Linux application. The Windows running under Win4Lin behaves exactly like Windows would behave if it were installed alone on the computer (registry included). Just about all Windows programs (including Microsoft Word) will run in Windows under Win4Lin. The only programs that I found that didn't run are some system utilities (like scandisk and drivespace) which you don't need and the old DOS VGA graphics mode programs (which can be run under DOSBox under Linux).

To luckystrikes7:

Get an MSDOS bootable floppy disk with debug on it. Boot from the floppy, run debug and use debug to wipe out (put all zeroes in) the first hard drive sector (track 0, head 0, sector 1). This will remove the master boot record and the partition table and make the hard drive behave as if it were empty.