Hi.
Pretty soon I am going to do a clean install of windows. I own XP Pro and I now own Windows Server 2008.

I would like to make a dual-boot system with XP/Server 2008. I have two hard drives. I would like to know your recommendations on how to setup the partitions for a dual-boot system. I've seen a couple of opinions, but I'm not sure of the number/size of the partitions I should create. I've spent a couple hours looking at blogs, forums, etc, but none are specific enough when it comes to the partitions.

My idea is 4 partitions.

HDD 0 - 500 GB
C:\ 440 GB - Storage
D:\ 60 GB - Server 2008 // How big should it be?

HDD 1 - 160 GB
E:\ 140 GB - Storage
F:\ 20 GB - Windows XP // This seems the right size.

Is this reasonable? Will the OS's both access all of the 'storage' files?
For example: I install Crysis on C:\ Drive. If I boot in XP will it launch in dX9? If I boot in Server 2008 will it launch in dx10?

I enjoy the performance and stability I get in XP, but I'd like to try Vista + dx10.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

-Jason

E6850 @ 3.0 GHz
8800 GTS
2 GB OCZ RAM
ASUS P5N-E SLI

Hello Jason,

A clean installation of Windows Server 2008 x86 takes 6GB; an installation of Windows Server 2008 x64 takes 10GB. So for the 32bit version of Windows Server I'd go for at least 10GB and for the 64bit version you should have at least 15 GB's. This all also depends of how much Server Roles/Server Features/Games/Applications you are going to install on the Windows Server partition.

I expect it will work fine if you install a game on 1 partition and create a shortcut from the other Operating System to it. If that doesn't work, you can try to install the game from the other OS into the exact same location (so it will overwrite the files) and it will register itself in the registry and copy files outside the installation directory too.

Hope this answers your questions!

Arris

Thanks for your help.