I'm curious about installing Windows XP after installing Ubuntu

12.04 dual-boot laptop windows-xp

6,974

If you've already installed ubuntu on your computer when you install xp on a (empty) partition you'll need to restore your grub (with an added boot line for xp).

To do this you'll need to create an empty partition where you want to install xp (since you do not want xp to install on top of you linux system, effectively wiping it). You can do this with partition magic. You can also do this with your program of choice but I just like partition magic because it's easy to use and quite save (you should still backup any data that cannot be lost just to be save). Please do keep in mind that if you re-size an partition with data that you do not make it smaller that the amount of data that's on the partition.

Next you'll need to install xp onto this partition which shouldn't be to hard to do. Just make sure you select your partition of choice at the pre-install settings.

After you've done that we're going to restore your grub since you can only boot xp at the moment. burn a boot-repair cd and boot it. Select "recommended repair" and wait for about a minute til it's done.

Reboot your pc. It should automatically boot into linux but you can select to boot your xp install. To customize your grub menu or change the choice delay you'll need grub customizer.

This approach always worked for me.

6,974

battleof3

Hey there! If you're reading this, you are one of those people who love stalking that one person you helped out that one time because that one person had some difficulties with Ubuntu. No worries, it's cool. A bit about me: I'm a 12-year-old computer addict who loves exploring new operating systems, video games, and good 'ol lines of coding. I've always had a simple dream of having 50+ subscribers on YouTube watching me play video games just because they can. The only thing(s) keeping me from that is/are money, my suckish laptop, money, my suckish desktop, money, my parents -- oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that money is a huge factor in the deal. Oh well, I'll just have to do about 4 years of waiting... Well, that's me! ^-^

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

battleof3 over 1 year

So, I installed and have been using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for a bout a year and a half now, and I am quite happy with it. My only problem is that a lot of games are not supported. I would use WINE for all of them that I could, but my laptop SUCKS, and it would crash if I did use WINE for most of the games I want to play. (Yes, I have looked into PlayOnLinux, but to no more success than with WINE.) Anyways, I wanted to install Windows XP after already having installed Ubuntu. Would it just wipe Ubuntu to make space for itself? I'd be fine with installing Ubuntu again. I do understand that I could just experiment with it myself, but I don't want to risk screwing up my first laptop just yet.

Thanks for your time!

-------------------Devon

-EDIT- I've decided to wipe Ubuntu from my laptop and install Windows XP through my Dad's Windows XP discuss and key, then install Ubuntu and go from there. Thanks for your suggestions, though.
- battleof3 over 10 years
  
  I meant disk, not discuss.
battleof3 over 10 years

Thanks for the reply, but performance is kind of a must for me.
battleof3 over 10 years

Wait, so if I do install XP over Ubuntu, Ubuntu will b ed
battleof3 over 10 years

*be deleted, correct?
Akisame over 10 years

if you install xp on a partition used by your Ubuntu OS it will be wiped.