Can i slave in a window xp into windows7 computer

[Chitown_Jim]

Hello,
just bought a new computer for my business, it is windows 7. I have a lot of customer information and a program on my old computer that is a windows xp home edition. Can I slave the old one so I can run both and not have to transfer over any files?

 

[Mu33rto]

How are the harddrives connected to the motherboard. If IDE then you make win7 hdd the master and winxp the slave. If using sata make sure win7 is the 1st bootable device and not winxp harddrive. You can do that in BIOS. You will be able to read the data off the xp machine but you are going to have a problem if you try to run some applications that are not compatible with windows 7

 

[Traildriver]

Easiest is to network them together by making an office network. I have software that will NOT run on Win7 (tried and crashed so bad I had to reinstall Win7). When you need that old software go to that PC and run it. Results and data that can be used on the new PC are accessed via the network. Advantage is to also use each PC as the others backup.

Alternatively, set up the new PC as a dual boot Win 7 - Win XP system. That has its own difficulties.

Or go as suggested above... if the old software is Win 7 compatable, install it on the new PC and use the old for storage and backup. It's easiest to transfer the data via network (using a crossover cable or a router and cables hookup), it saves opening the cases up and moving hard drives.

 

[WinOutreach4]

Networking computers of different Windows versions can be accomplished easily:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Networking-home-computers-running-different-versions-of-Windows
And just to make things a little easier to use both computers from the same mouse, please check out Mouse Without Borders which is explained here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2011/09/09/microsoft-garage-download-mouse-without-borders.aspx

David
Windows Outreach Team - IT Pro

 

[Mu33rto]

You can also convert the windows xp system into a virtual machine if for some reason you don't want the old system there.Or want to use it as a server, home media center, etc.... Download Disk2vhd this app will convert the physical HDD of the windows xp to a virtual file. Then you can use Oracle VM VirtualBox to run the virtual drive. That way you don't have to have the physical windows xp system there to access all the program or data of it.