Vista/7 dual boot question

Swi1ch · 23 May 2009

I can't find anything about this after reading the first five pages in this sub-forum so here goes:

I have a 1TB HD, with four partitions: C:50GB; Vista and 'Core' apps (Antivirus, Messenger), W:50GB; Windows 7, D:250GB Software (Games mainly) and a E:550GB Storage.

As you may guess, the Vista partition was originally 100GB but I split it in two to install Windows 7. As far as I can see 7 is running fine. The only problem is that I can't get any programs running in it. I can browse to them in explorer but when I try and boot them they just don't run, usually citing a missing .dll or something similar. The only things that have worked so far is playing a video in VLC (VLC installed to the D: drive and the video stored on the E: drive), Firefox (Installed to the D: drive) and installing Windows Messenger onto the Windows 7 partition when it wouldn't run from the C: drive (The installation pack was already located on the E: drive from when I downloaded it previously)

I can only assume this is because these programs aren't installed to Windows 7 and entered in the registry (Or whatever else is required for an OS to recognise and run a program), but I have in the past wiped the Vista partition totally and reinstalled it, and all the programs on the D: and E: drives worked fine, although some don't seem to be recognised properly (For example, when I insert my Far Cry 2 disk, the splash screen only allows me the option to install, but running the .exe in the installation directory runs the game fine)

Am I missing something or is this the way it's supposed to be? Is there any way around it? I really want to start using 7 but don't fancy totally giving up Vista yet and making a totally fresh install, seeing how solid it has been for me.

Victek · 24 May 2009

Swi1ch said:

I can only assume this is because these programs aren't installed to Windows 7 and entered in the registry (Or whatever else is required for an OS to recognise and run a program), but I have in the past wiped the Vista partition totally and reinstalled it, and all the programs on the D: and E: drives worked fine, although some don't seem to be recognised properly (For example, when I insert my Far Cry 2 disk, the splash screen only allows me the option to install, but running the .exe in the installation directory runs the game fine)

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I think you're correct that the programs need to be installed again in Windows 7 to work properly. In my experience it has never worked to move Windows programs to a different Windows install and that is in effect what you're doing by trying to run apps in "7" that were installed in Vista. There are "standalone" apps that don't install and enter data into the registry, but most do.