SORRY I know that the issue of vmware has been brought up time and time again! And yes... this is another vmware question.

Before installing vmware, I want to make sure this will work.
I have a dual boot xp/Slackware12. At times I have needed to reboot to run an xp program while in linux. Then reboot again to go back to linux. I figure it would be easier to use vmware.

In slackware, can I also boot my xp partition?. The only experience I have with virtual machines is using xp to boot linux live cds. I did that long before I decided to dual boot.

Regards
okos

This is second hand advice, so treat it carefully...

VMWare can read your existing physical partition so you should be able to do this. However, VMWare may need to install its own drivers on the partition to use the PC's hardware properly. This may affect your existing settings.

In short, it should work, but back your partition up first in case it changes something that you didn't want changed.

Would I have to copy video, audio, modem etc... drivers for xp onto the linux partition or have two copies of the drivers on the xp partition?

If the latter, I guess I would have to copy the drivers off the Dell driver disk without reinstall?

VMWare should do that for you which means you should have 2 drivers on the partition.

In XP, create 2 Hardware profiles. Call one "Boot", and the other "VM", or any names you want.

Now, boot XP, and select the "VM" profile. When booted, remove all the motherboard, and video specific drivers. When asked to re-boot, just shut down. Now boot XP under VMWare, and again select the "VM" profile. XP will now find the correct "basic" drivers for you. Install VMWare Tools.

Now, when you boot under VMWare, the "VM" profile has the emulated hardware defined. When you really do boot XP, select the "Boot" profile, which still has all the motherboard specific drivers.

But, as was pointed out, back up first. Just in case.

Cheers.

Thanks MQMan

I booted xp and set up two hardware profiles:
I selected controll panel>system>hardware>hardware profiles.
I renamed the current profile as boot.
Second profile as vm.

I rebooted as vm.

How do I disable the drivers and which specific drivers?
Disable chipset and nvidia video driver? How?

That depends on the drivers. Some drivers put an entry in Add/Remove programs. For others, you might have to go to the Device Manager, select Update Driver, and then use the "pick from a list", to get the Windows "generic" driver.

Cheers.

If I remove the driver with add/remove wouldnt it wipe it off the hard drive so neither profile would have it?
okos

Oooops. Didn't think of that one.

So, the alternatives are to do just that, and then re-install them when you next boot the "real" system. Or, use the "update driver" method to remove them.

Cheers.