Dual boot Win10 32 bit with Win10 64 bit

[bevills1]

Has anyone here setup dual boot Win10 32 bit with Win10 64 bit? or know how? According to https://www.tenforums.com/installation-upgrade/34401-dual-boot-windows-10-32-bit-windo...10-64-bit.html it’s possible if some commands are run as administrator, but according to the last May 7, 2016 reply at http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2745377/dual-boot-windows-bit-bit-dump-bit-installation.html it’s a simple matter of installing both versions on separate drives or separate partitions.Currently I have the 64 bit installed which won’t run any 16 bit apps that I ran previously in WinXP and I want to continue running. I was dual booting the current Win10 with WinXP, but the new motherboard I got doesn’t support WinXP.

[redwudz]

Have you tried running the old apps on W10 32bit? If they do work, then I 'think' you could set up a dual boot.
I don't have a 32 bit version of W10 around to try it.

All my W10 installs are 64 bit. 32 bit will only see about 4GB of RAM, which may cause some problems if your
video card uses some of that. And if you put both OS's on a new partitioned drive, MS activation may be a problem.

[october262]

Has anyone here setup dual boot Win10 32 bit with Win10 64 bit? or know how? According to https://www.tenforums.com/installation-upgrade/34401-dual-boot-windows-10-32-bit-windo...10-64-bit.html it’s possible if some commands are run as administrator, but according to the last May 7, 2016 reply at http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2745377/dual-boot-windows-bit-bit-dump-bit-installation.html it’s a simple matter of installing both versions on separate drives or separate partitions.Currently I have the 64 bit installed which won’t run any 16 bit apps that I ran previously in WinXP and I want to continue running. I was dual booting the current Win10 with WinXP, but the new motherboard I got doesn’t support WinXP.

try right clicking on an app - click properties - compatibility - click compatibility mode

[Constant Gardener]

Try a virtual machine, such as VMWare Workstation Player, which is free for noncommercial use. Windows will eventually complain about activation, but for short-term use that is not an issue. I have XP in a VM and it runs all my old stuff without problem.

[bevills1]

I don't have 32 bit Win10 on any PC, but I'd think a 32 bit Win10 should run 16 bit apps just as well as 32 bit WinXP did.

Following instructions at https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/set-compatibility-mode-windows-10 I see no compatibility tab after right click and choose properties.

I tried the virtual machine yesterday, but in the WinXP VM Device Manager it shows only C drive for WinXP, D drive for a DVD drive and a 3 1/2 floppy but no other drives. I don't even have a 3 1/2 floppy connected. The apps can't be run if WinXP in the VM can't see them.

[andkar]

What 16 bit program are we talking about? Dosbox should run most.

[Constant Gardener]

The drives you see inside a VM are not the same as on the host machine - they're "virtual drives" that are part of the large files comprising your VM. Copy your software's install file from the host PC (Windows 10) and paste them into the VM, say on the desktop. Install those within the VM and they should work.

[bevills1]

Apps like Hoyle by Sierra software, Scrabble, Bridge, Euchre, etc. I think they were Windows 98 programs that still run in WinXP, and I don't know if they'd run from Dosbox. Nero 6 is another program I like to use to burn, rip or copy CDs and DVDs, and I'm pretty sure it won't work in Win10.

Will copying files in Win10 and pasting into the VM work because the drive partition where the files are located aren't seen from VM?

Edit: The VM I tried is from https://my.vmware.com/de/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation...duct_downloads. Does anyone know if the one from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702 or other VM may work better?

[Constant Gardener]

Will copying files in Win10 and pasting into the VM work because the drive partition where the files are located aren't seen from VM?

Yes.

[ozymango]

Apps like Hoyle by Sierra software, Scrabble, Bridge, Euchre, etc. I think they were Windows 98 programs that still run in WinXP, and I don't know if they'd run from Dosbox. Nero 6 is another program I like to use to burn, rip or copy CDs and DVDs, and I'm pretty sure it won't work in Win10.

Does anyone know if the one from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702 or other VM may work better?

I know that VirtualBox will work to run Windows XP within Windows 10, it's a free download (for VirtualBox, not XP) and you can share files between the host system and the VM, so you can load/install/run whatever software you've still got installers for into your VM XP and it'll run pretty smoothly. You can even "passthrough" the hardware DVD drive to the VM so you can burn from within the VM to your system's DVD burner (for progs like Nero that use their own disk image format). And with a VM of your OS, once you get it set up, you can very easily just load/move it to another system if you do upgrade your host OS, it's a lot easier than trying to set up any dual-boot system -- you can even build an XP VM in Windows 10 and then copy it to a Linux computer and it'll run, very sweet.

As for your other apps, it'll mostly depend on how they're installed -- if you've got the original installers, it's a piece of cake, otherwise you'll just have to experiment to see if you can just drag/drop folders on your VM to load progs. Though if you don't mind me asking, why are you going to so much effort to load/run programs you can probably easily get cheaper newer versions of that'll run on your current Win10 machine?

[lordsmurf]

Apps like Hoyle by Sierra software

More like Windows 3.1

[gll99]

Instead of dual boot I now install the 2 os on 2 separate boot drives and then select the drive I want in the bios. It's a bit less convenient if you constantly switch but no conflicts since they are completely independent installs.

[bevills1]

Deleted by author due to quote that screwed up.

[bevills1]

Scrabble was on 2 floppy disks which I copied to a hard drive folder which installs up to where it asks for disk 2 and can go no farther. However, I had installed it in a hard drive folder and simply wrote a batch file to run in WinXP which runs fine. Ditto for some of the other programs.

I think dual boot 32 bit and 64 bit Win10 will be quite easy if it's as easy as indicated in the second link referenced in my initial post. I plan to try dual boot this weekend which lacks the slowness of VM and extra copying to VM, and I can always revert to VM if dual boot doesn't work satisfactorily.

Edit: The first review at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015UA1SLE/ref=sxr_sxwds-rbp_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p...523070259&sr=1 is why I'm apprehensive to try new versions. The old versions I have are quite challenging and enjoyable, and I think I risk disappointment with newer versions.

[hudsonf]

I have a desktop that I dual boot Windows 10 home and Widows 10 Pro. I have Home and Pro installed on separate drives and used EasyBCD to setup the dual boot. If you want to try this only connect the drive that you want to install the new OS on. After you have the OS installed shut down the computer and reconnect the other drive. Start the computer and enter the bios to select what drive you want to be the main boot drive. When you get back into Windows download and install EasyBCD. Run the program and set the other OS as your second OS.

[bevills1]

A little more searching discovered the 16 bit apps run even better in DosBox. It’s faster than running in VM WinXP and runs even better since DosBox has sound drivers that WinXP lacks which results in no sound when 16 bit apps are run in WinXP. The DosBox I used is from https://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/.

I setup DosBox to automatically run PowerMenu 3.00 by Brownbab Software, and used PowerMenu to run dos programs which eliminates need to create batch files. I had the PowerMenu from the early Windows days to run dos programs. According to http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52034 there’s a version of PowerMenu in DosBox, but I didn’t find that until after I already setup DosBox with the PowerMenu I have.