Dual booting with downgrade licence?

Hi there

I have Win7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit, and I would like to install it as part of a new dual-boot system (as in the laptop in question is brand-new and is a 'naked' system with no OS preinstalled).

I would like to have one partition with Win7 and the other with WinXP, set up as a dual-boot system so I can choose my OS on startup.

Is it legal for me to use the Win7 on one partition, and WinXP on the other partition where that XP installation is enabled by the downgrade licence?

I have searched the forum on this sort of thing and have found some stuff from last year; however it is still not clear to me and I wondered if a consensus has been reached on this matter yet?

Fwiw, I also have an unused WinXP disc and product key which I can use if necessary, but I'd rather not do that unless I have to.

Thanks for your time
Tony

What license did you downgrade?

Thanks for your reply. I haven't actually downgraded any license yet, but I was planning on downgrading the Win7 Home premium license; I thought that was how it works?

Cheers

I see. If the win7 is a FPP (retail license), it doesnt have downgrade rights regardless of edition as far as I know. Only certain OEM editions (apart from VL) have downgrade rights and that does NOT include home premium.

Also, you cannot use both the originally licensed product AND the downgraded product at the same time, only one can be used at any time since the downgraded license REPLACES the original.

Fair enough and thanks for your help - well it is an OEM version, but it is also Home Premium, so looks like I will have to use my spare copy of XP. No worries :)

One other thing while I am on it - slightly off topic, but when setting up the new laptop, the driver disc (that came with the laptop) got me to install Intel Rapid Storage Technology. Looking this up after the event (duh!) I find that this is some sort of RAID technology; although I have only one hard drive in the laptop, does this mean that I will still need to install WinXP RAID drivers as suggested in this article:

Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

What do you think, or would you prefer I started a new thread on that topic?

Yes, please start a new thread. There are other forum members more knowledgeable on this aspect than me.

Not seen a brand-new Notebook on sale with no OS.
For better help with problems, Can you post your specs.
Filling out System Specs
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For Download grade rights.
See Bill2 post 4.

For dual-boot system.
Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP
First check for all the Win XP drivers for your hardware on the manufacturer's web site.
If your Win XP CD, does not support your Sata Controller, you will need to load drivers to uses at F6.
Load Sata Controller drivers with a floppy disk is the best way.
SATA Drivers - Load in Windows XP Setup on Dual Boot
OR
SATA Drivers - Slipstream into Windows XP CD

For what WinXP CD's have Sata Controller Drivers.
Win XP CD with no sp, few Sata Controller Drivers.
to
Win XP CD with sp3, most Sata Controller Drivers.

Fair comment; I deliberately bought the system naked so that I could configure everything myself, and there are also no junk antivirus programs with 3-month expiry, or any other tosh like that.

Given Bill2's reply above, ok, but still what counts as using the products at the same time? If I was using the OSs on a dual-boot system, I would be using only one at a time. This was the point that the older discussions reached - what counts as using both at once? Having them both on the same machine or running them both at the same time? As far as I can see, to run them both at the same I would need a virtual machine. Do you see what I'm asking? :)

thanks

Thanks bro

Righto. So what that means is that I can't have the Win7 OS *and* the Win XP that is downgraded from it, installed on the same machine at the same time, even as a dual-boot system, is that right?
Chers, Tony