Can I run programs from my Vista partition?

[Bryce]

Can I run programs from my Vista partition and access files, etc from it while on Windows 7? I just installed it on a 150gb partition and I really don't want to reinstall everything, transfer over data, etc, etc. Will this work or no?

 

[swarfega]

Most modern programs install files in all sorts of places such as registry and c:\windows\system32 so for those youd have to install them for Windows 7. There are some programs that dont have installers and just copy files to a location and for those you can just put a shortcut on your Windows 7 desktop.

 

[torrentg]

What I find really useful is the "copy to folder" tweak that adds that option to the right click menu. I like to have each OS independent from the others in my triple boot in case of failure. What I mean is, I will not just add a shortcut to a program from another OS program folder.

I have lots of programs here, like all different versions of Virtualdub, many ripping tools, ac3 encoder from command line etc...that don't need install. So I use copy to folder function to quickly choose these apps and have them copied to the "new" OS folder.

But the answer is yes. Many will work. If you don't know which, the only way is trial-and-error. You won't be harming anything by trying.

 

[Bryce]

Crap, forgot about the registry. Oh well, I guess I'll just backup everything and wait til my SSD gets here to install 7.