41. Prevent System Restore Points Being Lost
When Dual Booting With Windows XP
If you are running Windows XP and Windows Vista
as a dual boot machine, you may have noticed that,
after booting to Windows XP and then booting back to
Windows Vista, the system restore points in Windows
Vista disappear. This, apparently, is caused by
Windows XP's shadow copying and, according to
Microsoft, will not be fixed as it would require
extensive alterations to the code of Windows XP in
order to repair the problem.
While there is no real update fix for this
problem which, incidentally, can be extremely
annoying, there is a workaround - well, actually a
few three workarounds, as follows.
Workaround 1
This is Microsoft's work round. This relies upon
editing the registry. However, because of the
complexity of the workaround I have included the
link to the Microsoft knowledgebase article rather
than attempting to outline the 'fix' myself. You can
see the full knowledgebase article by clicking on
the link below:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926185/en-us
Workaround 2
This first workaround relies upon the
Bitlocker encryption feature. By enabling
Bitlocker Encryption either via an onboard TPM chip
or a removable USB pen drive you can, effectively,
stop Windows XP from removing system restore points
from Windows Vista.
Workaround 3
Another option, which is simpler if you don't
want to go down the Bitlocker Encryption route is to
install a third party boot manager, such as
BootITNG.
Workaround 4
Another route you could go down is that of
Virtual Machine software such as
Microsoft VPC 2007 (Free) or VMWare Workstation 6.0
(around £100 ($200)).
Virtual Machine software can't, however, be run
on Vista Basic or Vista Premium as it invalidates
the Vista Ender User Licence Agreement. VM Software
can be installed on Vista Business and Ultimate.
One thing you must ensure is that you have
sufficient memory to run two operating systems at
the same time.
For more information on Virtual Software see
Creating A Virtual Machine With VMware Workstation
Software in the Guides section.
This article uses VMWare Workstation as its
example, but the principle is the same whether you
use VMware or VPC 2007.