winxp and freebsd

[James Alexander Cook]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 03:59:30PM -0700, Tyler Gee wrote:
> You always have to install Windows first if you are going to dual boot
> with anything.  The reason is that Windows will automatically rewrite
> your Master Boot Record without asking so if you did FBSD first and
> then Windows you would have no way to access FBSD.
> 
> -wtgee
> 

I didn't have that problem when I installed Windows.  I already had Fedora
Linux on my computer, and I installed Windows XP professional, and probably
answered no to some question about writing to the MBR, and it was fine.  My
computer still booted into Fedore after the installation, and I just configured
grub (my bootloader) to add an option for Windows.

It probably depends on which version of Windows you're installing, of course.
But in any case, even if Windows does overwrite your MBR, you can just
overwrite it again yourself (you would have to use a boot disk one time to do
this).

But if you're starting fresh, yeah, no reason to go through all that.  Just
install Windows first.

- James Cook
  james.cook at utoronto.ca