One of the great things about the Vista and post-Vista operating systems is that the installer subsystem allows you a great deal of flexibility when it comes to installing multiple operating systems. It is fairly easy to put together a single installation DVD or USB stick that will allow you to install Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2 – in a variety of x86 and x64 flavors.
A couple of things to note about this guide:
- I do not use Vista — I have never really used Vista and now with Windows 7 out there really is no reason to; however the steps here will work just fine with Vista installation sources
- I have only tested this using a USB stick and will only cover that method here – it’s much more flexible (and faster) for installation than using DVD — but DVDs should work just fine: you can find plenty of tutorials on the web that will tell you how to use oscdimg.exe to take the files we create here and turn them into a burnable ISO
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
- USB stick, at least 4 GB (perhaps larger depending on how many OSes you plan to integrate, I use a 16 GB) that has been properly formatted using Steps 1 and 2 here
- ISOs or DVDs of the operating systems that you plan to integrate
- imagex.exe (can be found for download on the web, or you can download the full 1.7 GB WAIK here)
- computer running Vista or newer operating system (XP should work but I have not tested it)