Has anyone installed Linux on top of Vista?

[Neutral Guy]

...and retained the working presence of Windows Vista?

To be even more specific, has anyone done all this with a laptop?

I know that you can create partitions in theory by installing Linux while making it its own partition, but the guy at Best Buy said that when this is done with Vista already present, there can be problems. He said that the thing that should be installed first is Linux then Vista.

However, this ideal scenario is not what I have to work with. To make matters worse, I do not know where the Vista recovery disk that came with the laptop is present. This means that unless I find it, I cannot re-install Vista on a wiped hard drive.

Another thing is with laptops, he told me that they need extra drivers that desktops do not. Meaning that installing Linux on a laptop is an even bigger hassle.

[Lazuline]

Nah, you wouldn't want to do Linux first. It's just more work that way. Windows doesn't acknowledge Linux at all; it replaces the bootloader with its own, so you have to fix it manually. Irritating.
There is at least a small chance of things going wrong when resizing the Windows partition from the installer, but that isn't necessary with Vista, since it can shrink the partition itself.

Here, this should be helpful: apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htm
It should be more or less the same for distributions other than Ubuntu.

It is true that drivers are potentially an issue. Do some Google searches for your model and see what other people have to say. Even if it's a pain in the ass, odds are good that someone's gotten it to work by now.

[alwimo]

I've made a Linux partition on a laptop that has Vista on it and it didn't cause any problems that I know of.

Try wubi-installer.org/ for the easiest way of doing that.

You can (and should) create your own recovery disc, but I forget how. I think you should wait until somebody who can help you with this tells you what to do, and then do it, before you install Linux.

[Neutral Guy]

Aug 26, 2009 1:24:21 GMT -5 alwimo said:

I've made a Linux partition on a laptop that has Vista on it and it didn't cause any problems that I know of.

Try wubi-installer.org/ for the easiest way of doing that.

You can (and should) create your own recovery disc, but I forget how. I think you should wait until somebody who can help you with this tells you what to do, and then do it, before you install Linux.

Oh crap, you are in Austrailia. I guess that knocks you out as a person easy to meet IRL to assist me .

I would of course give that person a bit of money.

[alwimo]

I have figured out how I did it. On my Toshiba laptop, there's a program that came with it called "Recovery Disc Creator". What brand is your computer?

[Lazuline]

Aug 26, 2009 1:24:21 GMT -5 alwimo said:

I've made a Linux partition on a laptop that has Vista on it and it didn't cause any problems that I know of.

Try wubi-installer.org/ for the easiest way of doing that.

Wubi doesn't repartition your drive, it creates a virtual disk. There are some drawbacks to doing it that way. It's a bit slower, it can't suspend or hibernate, and, since it's dependent on Windows, problems in Windows can make it unusable.
It's good if you just want to try out Ubuntu, though, since it's easy to remove it cleanly.

[alwimo]

Thanks for the clarification. I used sloppy language.