Windows 8 to support Multi-Booting | Hacker News Reader

Windows 8 to support Multi-Booting

windows8news.com

7 pointssamvj9 comments

I think one key reason the iPad succeeds is that, there's no boot taking place when you want to use the device. So for light computing such as browsing the web, checking email, watching a quick video, the iPad works very well.

Of course, there's the portability aspect. but with something like this, if it comes to fruition, people could start using their computing devices more readily, which would open up for some very interesting uses.

Just my 2 cents ;-)

If there is no boot taking place, then how come an iPad takes around half a minute to turn on if it's been powered off, and not left in sleep mode?

I think my comment was poorly worded. I just meant, that its quicker to start using the device than a laptop say booting Windows 7.

Of course, i realise that the iPad can take time to 'get ready' too, but it was a very generic comparison.

Prior art http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/exo

I don't want to reboot every time I want to do something different.

I've tried to dualboot Windows and Linux from time to time, but I end up never doing it because rebooting is a hassle. I can't imagine rebooting just to watch a DVD on my laptop.

I think I've finally found the "holy grail" of dual booting. My laptop now has Windows and Linux on different partitions, and either one can run in a VirtualBox inside of the other. That way, no matter which OS I booted too, I still have access to everything in the other.

How did you do that? Last time I tried, it left Windows nearly unbootable.

Take a look at http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=33356 (win7) or http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=9697 (winxp).

Protip: never use VirtualBox's "save machine state and close" feature if you plan to dual boot like this. Its too easy to forget and boot to that OS directly next time...

Did you RTFA? It's not talking about dual booting, it's talking about booting multiple OSes (the general purpose one and also specialized ones) at once and then switching between them very quickly.

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