Dual Booting and sharing App's

[dzgruntld]

Greeting MSFN,

I understand dual booting so I can have two or more operating systems on one computer.

My question or part I am not sure of is,will or can the operating systems share applications/ programs?

Example: Disk0 partition 1 Windows XP

partition 2 Windows Vista

partition 3 Utility Programs ( firewall, anti-virus, word processor, etc)

partition 4 My Documents folder

With my utilities installed on partition 3, will each OS be able to access and run the same program?

I think I mean can I install the utility programs once into a single partition?

With My Documents installed on partition 4, will each OS be able to access and modify files

and the other OS still read a modified file?

I hope I am making some kind of sense in my questions.

Thanks,

Dzgruntld

Yes, I am a Postal Worker.

No, I do not own a gun.

[jaclaz]

With my utilities installed on partition 3, will each OS be able to access and run the same program?

I think I mean can I install the utility programs once into a single partition?

Basically, yes.

You will probably need to install all programs two times, one from booted OS #1 and once from booted OS #2, so that their install packages create the appropriate Registry entries.

You can avoid that using as much as you can portable apps.

The above is NOT recommended for antivirus or similar software that use auto update features, as the update files (virus definitions, etc.) may become "out of sync" and create a mess.

With My Documents installed on partition 4, will each OS be able to access and modify files

and the other OS still read a modified file?

Sure, once you have changed something in a file, it remains changed.

When I eat a biscuit, it stays eaten.

jaclaz

[dzgruntld]

Jaclaz,

Thanks for the fast reply. This is a great forum to look up things.

I understand better now about the installation of my utilities programs in a dual boot environment.

I was trying to be lazy and not have to install somethings twice. I see now that I will have to.

Thanks,

Dzgruntld

Yes, I am a Postal Worker.

No, I do not own a gun.