Does OS Selector work?

I'm trialing ADD in a vmware machine to see whether to purchase it or BING for multi OS booting (on my real desktop). Do you have a guide anywhere here that gives proper instructions for ADD use in installing another OS, apart from the couple of lines in the manual of "select the CD item in the Operating systems area of the Acronis OS Selector main window."?

All I'm getting is a selection for the original OS, and "boot from floppy". There is no "cd item". I have set up 3 primary partitions in the machine.

I have just purchased a new physical disk and would like to multi-boot. But if this is going to be that cryptic, it isn't for me.

 

Using OSS in a VM can either work or not just as on a real computer. Even if it works perfectly in an VM it doesn't mean it will work when you put it on the final real computer.

OSS probably isn't detecting the VM's CD drive and so it doesn't show up in the menu. This can also happen on real computers (like my P965 chipset board). If you haven't, check that the VM's CD drive is set to use the physical drive or an ISO file.

Whether you use OSS or BING is totally up to you. Try them both and see what works best in the final setup. This is where imaging and restoring can save a lot of time.

I would install each OS in isolation using the standard method of hiding other OS partitions and making the new one Active. You can then switch between them by chaning the Active partition.

For example, with OSS: You want to install XP and Vista, each on their own Primary partition.

1. Create the partitions using a partitioning program.
2. Set the XP partition Active and Hide the Vista partition.
3. Install XP.
4. Install OSS.
5. Make sure it boots properly into XP then Deactivate OSS.
6. Set the Vista partition Active and Hide the XP partition.
7. Install Vista.
8. Reactivate OSS.
9. Make sure it boots properly into Vista.
10. Verify that XP's OSS menu entry has XP Active and Vista Hidden and that Vista's entry has Vista Active and XP Hidden.
11. Continue as needed until all operating systems are installed.

Another option is to install all of the operating systems first (in isolation) and then install the boot manager. If you do it this way, you can image the system prior to installing the boot manager and easily restore and try different ones.

 

Thanks MudCrab. I ended up getting it working in the VM. But I'm still unsure which boot manager is the best for me.

Can you answer this: how is it possible to remove OSS completely if, say, the XP system that has ADD installed is corrupt. In other words can it be done manually from a dos disk or something? There seems to only be a "deactivate" option in the boot menu. Is it as simple as deleting the Bootwiz folder and fixing/rewriting the MBR?

 

Manually deactivating OSS is very easy. Just replace the MBR with a standard MBR and then the current Active partition will boot. You can leave the BOOTWIZ folder if you want and a simple reactivation will turn OSS back on.

There is also an Uninstall option if you have OSS included on the DD CD.

 

Ahhh, I see now

One more question to "seal the deal":
I created a small hidden NTFS partition at the beginning of the disk and installed OSS there so it is isolated from all OS's. It seems to be working fine. Is this acceptable/safe?

 

I think you should be fine if OSS works okay. I have OSS installed on a non-OS partition, though it's not hidden. I prefer it that way because I can restore any of the OS partitions without having to worry about messing up the OSS files.