Is there a limit to how many OS's I can install?

[Genralkidd]

I currently have Windows 7 Ultimate x64 as the original OS that came with my Alienware M14x laptop. I later dual-booted it with Windows 8 Pro x64 and also made it a triple-boot system by install Ubuntu through the Wubi installer.

I've got a 100 GB partition reserved for a 4th OS and I'm trying to install Windows Vista to it but I keep getting errors saying that Vista couldn't be installed to that partition or something. My system is MBR and it already exceeded the maximum number of primary partitions so I am installing Vista onto an extended partition, however, Windows 8 is also installed on an extended partition and works fine. Is there a limit to how many OS's I can install onto the MBR / BCD?

 

[unoriginal1]

Personally... I would have installed the extra OS's onto VM's instead of making yourself reboot to get into another OS. Much smoother imo.

 

[USAFRet]

While I don't have a specific answer to your question, you might find this article from a few years ago interesting

A simple Howto for installing and booting 145 operating systems in a PC

And yes, VM's would be far, far easier.

 

[Pinhedd]

I currently have Windows 7 Ultimate x64 as the original OS that came with my Alienware M14x laptop. I later dual-booted it with Windows 8 Pro x64 and also made it a triple-boot system by install Ubuntu through the Wubi installer.

I've got a 100 GB partition reserved for a 4th OS and I'm trying to install Windows Vista to it but I keep getting errors saying that Vista couldn't be installed to that partition or something. My system is MBR and it already exceeded the maximum number of primary partitions so I am installing Vista onto an extended partition, however, Windows 8 is also installed on an extended partition and works fine. Is there a limit to how many OS's I can install onto the MBR / BCD?

There's a conventional limit of 4 active (bootable) partitions on any one drive that has been initialized with an MBR partitioning scheme. If your motherboard has UEFI compatible firmware it should be able to be reinitialized to a GPT partition scheme which supports up to 128. This can be done from within the Drive Manager in Windows if all of the requirements are met. I cannot recall off the top of my head if this requires the drive to be reformatted or not.

Extended partitions are containers for logical partitions and cannot contain boot loader code as that would confuse the hell out of the firmware. For that reason, an operating system cannot be installed to an extended partition.

 

[Genralkidd]

Personally... I would have installed the extra OS's onto VM's instead of making yourself reboot to get into another OS. Much smoother imo.

What kind of performance would I be looking at in a VM though? I intend to use Windows Vista for some video editing as well as some gaming. In the fact, I've always felt OS's running in virtual machines felt kind of choppy when I used them and sound/video was always terrible, especially when the bitrates got higher.

 

[USAFRet]

Personally... I would have installed the extra OS's onto VM's instead of making yourself reboot to get into another OS. Much smoother imo.

What kind of performance would I be looking at in a VM though? I intend to use Windows Vista for some video editing as well as some gaming. In the fact, I've always felt OS's running in virtual machines felt kind of choppy when I used them and sound/video was always terrible, especially when the bitrates got higher.

For gaming, it will suck. For video editing, it might work well. I have a Linux VM that is used mainly for watching (not editing) video. You can't tell the difference, even when running full screen.

And why Vista? Dump that POC.

 

[Genralkidd]

Personally... I would have installed the extra OS's onto VM's instead of making yourself reboot to get into another OS. Much smoother imo.

What kind of performance would I be looking at in a VM though? I intend to use Windows Vista for some video editing as well as some gaming. In the fact, I've always felt OS's running in virtual machines felt kind of choppy when I used them and sound/video was always terrible, especially when the bitrates got higher.

For gaming, it will suck. For video editing, it might work well. I have a Linux VM that is used mainly for watching (not editing) video. You can't tell the difference, even when running full screen.

And why Vista? Dump that POC.

I'm not doing any complex video editing so the software I'm using is relatively simple. However, it's exclusive to Windows Vista. I'm particularly referring to Windows Movie Maker. The Vista version actually had some really great features that made it a decent free video editor. The subsequent "Live Essentials" versions of Windows Movie Maker were horrible and lack most of the features of Windows Movie Maker. Also, there are a few games that work better on Vista than Windows 7/8 even with compatibility modes. Overall, Windows Vista is also my favorite Windows OS to date with Windows 8 coming in 2nd. I've never had any issues with Vista like others might have. It was the most feature-packed Windows in my opinion and I like having more features built in even if some of it is considered "bloat".

Also, I read that Windows Vista and later versions should be able to boot off a logical partition since they contain newer boot loaders that should allow them to work off the logical partition.

Anyways, I noticed my laptop has a Recovery Partition that seems to be marked as a Primary Partition. If I were to delete that partition and increase the space using the 100 GB I had reserved for it, would that theoretically allow Windows Vista to be installed?

 

[unoriginal1]

Performance would be great. You can allocate as much or as little as you need.

What games do you find run better in vista? Older titles? I've never had issues with vm's but it probably depends on the type of hardware you have available to you and what your doing with it. I don't game, video edit or anything of that nature on my vm's.

 

[Genralkidd]

Performance would be great. You can allocate as much or as little as you need.

What games do you find run better in vista? Older titles? I've never had issues with vm's but it probably depends on the type of hardware you have available to you and what your doing with it. I don't game, video edit or anything of that nature on my vm's.

I'm basically just trying to run older games like MechWarrior 3. On Windows 7 the audio stutters a lot and is very choppy. On Windows 8 it won't even run. I'm also trying to do some simple video editing on Windows Movie Maker and the Vista exclusive edition has all the features I need and is a lot better than any other version of Windows Movie Maker.

 

[unoriginal1]

Performance would be great. You can allocate as much or as little as you need.

What games do you find run better in vista? Older titles? I've never had issues with vm's but it probably depends on the type of hardware you have available to you and what your doing with it. I don't game, video edit or anything of that nature on my vm's.

I'm basically just trying to run older games like MechWarrior 3. On Windows 7 the audio stutters a lot and is very choppy. On Windows 8 it won't even run. I'm also trying to do some simple video editing on Windows Movie Maker and the Vista exclusive edition has all the features I need and is a lot better than any other version of Windows Movie Maker.

Being that what your doing isn't to resource demanding. If you have a current pc, i'd say vm's is the way to go. That way you can fire them up, do your work and not have to reboot and load different OS's just to play your game or make a movie.

You should have no issues running any of that.. again it depends on your hardware.