Triple boot system

[FuBaPedro]

Hi,

It's coming up to that time where I need to reinstall XP again. To many faulty torrents installed on my sytsem is starting to make it sound like an old school tape drive. I've decided that I wouldn't mind trying out the other options to XP Pro at the same time.

So for my triple boot system on top of XP I am going to Install Vista 64bit (get the full use of DX10 for games since I just got my eVga 9800gtx ssc) and I'm also going to dabble with a bit of Ubuntu 8.

Befoe I go ahaed and jump into it I thought I'd check a couple of points the the kind fellows of HL.

Firstly, is there any way to triple boot from one boot loader menu so you have the initial choice of all three on one menu and default select XP after say 15 seconds. I think this can be done with super grub boot loader but not sure.

Secondly, is there a particular order in which I should install them? All the threads I've tried to read on the net about this turn out to be extinct or miss the crucial section.

Thirdly, is there any way to share all the programs in XP and Vista by remapping the program files folder to another shared partition? This would save having to install duplicate copies on different partitions and make it easier if I need to reinstall either OS.

Basically what I am planning on doing with my 200Gb hard drive (186Gb useable) is to set three 25Gb partitions, one for XP and one for Vista and one for My Docs to share between the two, a 100Gb partition for the program files and use the remaining 11Gb for Ubuntu (2Gb of this set as the Swap partition).

So if any one has experience of doing this please let me know if this will work.

p.s can anyone help me resize my sig. below

[PrOLifIC_onE]

There are many tri-booters here and they will be able to help more than me. BUT I am dual booter and can discuss a little about your vista/xp questions.

Vista64 has 2 'program file' folders, one is for 32bit programs (x86) and one for 64bit. You wont be able to share those installed programs (program file folders) but the 2 OSes do allow for you to access files from each others partition, so if you wanted to create a My Documents folder on any available partition (recognized by Xp and vista), then you would be able to save all your general files and documents between the two. In XP all you would have to do is right click "My Documents" click properties, then click Move (this moves all files that are in there, to another location) or just change the target directory to that of your vista documents.

As for the tri-boot stuff and boot menu, some other will gladly be able to help and I think someone even wrote a guide on it.

[screwballl]

proper install order to have the least number of problems from any OS:

install XP, then Vista x64, then Ubuntu.

The reason for this order is that Vista takes over the XP boot loader with the BCD, and then Ubuntu takes over the boot loader with Grub. If you try to install Vista after Ubuntu or XP after either of the others, the boot loader gets completely screwed up and there is a chance you will not be able to boot from any of the 3. Also make sure that the OS is completely installed and up to date with all drivers before jumping to the next OS.

After Ubuntu si installed, it should show a menu with a few Ubuntu choices and then XP and Vista.