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 three workarounds, as follows.
Workaround 1
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 2
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 3
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.