Vista and Windows Server 2008 dual boot

I am trying to dual boot Vista and Windows Server 2008 (WS0. I install Disk Director 10 (DD) and Operating System Selector (OSS) in Vista. OSS recognizes fine Vista. When I install WS08, OSS cannot recognize WS08 as a bootable choice. I see it and can manually set it as bootable in OSS but it still cannot recognize it as a choice to click on as I boot up. It appears that WS08 installs its own booting utility and deactivates OSS. When I get OSS activated again (and I'm not sure exactly how I do it), I see only Vista. Clicking on Vista, then brings up the WS08 booting utility which allows me to choose between Vista and WS08. This seems to work okay although it is awkward because I lack full control over it. I go into OSS in Vista and try to make it work. Then, I can't boot into WS08 as computer keeps resetting and refuses to reboot. It says it is missing autocheck file as it tries to boot WS08. I, then, have to reinstall WS08. At any rate, this is very frustating. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

I don't know if OSS directly supports WS2008. I doubt it as OSS didn't even correctly detect a standard installation of Vista until Acronis released an update.

I don't have WS2008 to play with so I can only offer some suggestions.

You can reactivate OSS from the DD CD if you included the OSS programs on it when you created it. This is recommended if you intend to use OSS as it gives you access to the program if the computer won't boot.

Get Vista working properly with OSS again. WS2008 seems to have taken over Vista's booting (as usual with MS OS installations -- new takes over old). Then, when you install or "repair" WS2008, make sure that the Vista partition is hidden and the WS2008 partition is Active (use DD for this). Also, you may need to deactivate OSS prior to installing or repairing WS2008 so it doesn't get in the way.

Once that is done, you may be able to get OSS to boot into WS2008 manually.

 

If it helps at all, DD10 wasn't happy with MS HomeServer, but that might have been due to the fact all disks are treated as dynamic with no option for any other translation.

But as HS uses parts of 2008 I'd expect a similar result.

Colin

 

Vista and Server 2008 share the same kernel, and since DD 10 works with Vista I would expect that it will work with 2008. However, getting OS Selector to recognize it is another matter, but I'll bet that MudCrab can figure out how to manually edit the configuration file to get it to be recognized.

 

I worked some more with the Vista and Windows Server 2008 dual boot system. Basically, Acronis products - True Image and Disk Director - provide no support for Windows 2008. I could never make a backup that worked when I recovered it with True Image. This was true for both Vista and Windows 2008. Windows 2008 installs its own boot utility. I could not control Acronis' Operating System Selector (OSS) in competition with this utility. You need the utility to boot Windows 2008 because OSS cannot recognize Windows 2008. At any rate, I would not recommend working with Vista and Windows 2008 and the Acronis products. Possibly, Acronis products work just fine with Vista alone. But they certainly do not when you include Windows 2008.

 

Do you know what the main booting files are for Windows Server 2008?

In Vista, it's bootmgr and the \boot folder.

Is it similar for WS 2008?

If so, the OSS menu entry could probably be entered manually. I don't have WS 2008 so I can't run any tests on it.

When Vista first came out, OSS had to be tricked into booting a Vista partition. This was accomplished by making it think that it was booting XP. Something along the same lines may work with WS 2008 until OSS is updated to directly support it.

 

I did more work with dual booting Vista and Windows Server 2008. To straighten out the mess booting, I found inserting the Vista disk will detect and correct the booting problems. However, the Windows 2008 system is so screwed up after recovering it with True Image that it is mostly unuseable. I won't even bother to list all the problems I have as they never stop. Since I have no reliable way to back up this configuration, I'm going to stick with my XP and Windows 2003 configuration. At least it works fine and I can use Partition Magic, Boot Magic and Drive Image with it, as well as True Image of course.

 

Ok kids 1 even the advanced boot manager can't manage the same os onthe same drive 2vista=ws08 btw why boher with vista since the same tools are on ws08 even more.ok 2- media centre and sidebar but it can be ported easy
from vista