<From my Windows Live Blog>

1 elected to set up my development PC such that the it multi-boots.

My development PC is running Windows 7 and has Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 (Beta 2).

Typical installing a retro version of software tends to break the newer versions, which I can't afford to happen.

I could have used the Win7-VPC-Win XP Compatibility option but found that a little cumbersome.

What I did was to install a second instance of Win 7 specifically for VS 2005 and CE 6, with a twist.

With Win 7 you can create a virtual hard drive (VHD) and install a bootable OS to it, that then can be a system boot option.

This is what I did.

There are many explanations on how to do this.  Do a search on "Win 7 VHD Boot".

eg http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2953-virtual-hard-drive-vhd-file-create-start-boot.html

Basically you boot with the install media (I use a specially created boot USB stick .. that's another story).

Then you jump out of the install dialog to a command prompt and run diskpart.

With Win 7 in Diskpart you can create a virtual hard drive ( a hard drive that is actually just a file anywhere on your system ).

This can then be partitioned, made bootable and formatted.   The OS can then be installed to it.

You then jump back to the install dialog and point to the partition on the VHD and continue the installation.

This way you can create a multi-boot system from an existing single partition system without any pain.

..And the VHD can be deleted at any time from the original OS without and consequences (except losing the VHD boot option and its contents).

Also the VHD can be mounted on the original  OS.

Open-mouthedNerdRainbowStarSunLight bulbLight bulbLight bulbWink

NEXT: Setting up the target and building an OS.