Many games don’t work on my home computer. I am running Windows 2000 Professional. A friend suggested that I downgrade to Windows 98 SE. However, is this possible? Another friend suggested that I could run both the operating systems on a single PC and while booting the computer I can choose the operating system I want to use. Can you let me know how to do this as well? My computer is a Celeron 850 MHz processor,128 RAM, and 20 GB HDD capacity.

I am glad that you have raised this question as having a multi-boot computer is quite a nifty idea. I have split my answer into three parts to address the different scenarios which you could have on your computer. From the table of contents below, pick the scenario which best fits your situation.

(a) You are dead-set on trying to downgrade from Windows 2000 after you upgraded from Windows 98
(b) You want to dual-boot Windows 2000 and Windows 98 but you only have one partition on your computer
(c) You want to dual-boot Windows 2000 and Windows 98 and you already have two (or more) partitions on your hard drive

(a) It isn’t easy to downgrade from Windows 2000 Professional to Windows 98 SE. However, you can find instructions for restoring Windows 98 (if you upgraded to Windows 2000) at support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q250456.

(b) It is possible to have two operating systems loaded onto one machine and have a boot menu at startup asking which operating system you wish to load. There are many utilities which can do this but the standard Windows menu is perfectly fine (just more fiddly to install). Before starting there are a few things we will need to discuss. Firstly, it is essential that you backup all of the data you would like to keep. Things can go pear shaped in this procedure, so you must have a backup of all your data. Once you have done that, we will need to look at your disk configuration. In order to have multiple operating systems, you must have multiple partitions on your hard drive. You cannot install more than one operating system on one partition. For example, if you only have a C: hard drive on your computer, then you must repartition your disk before you can proceed (by the way, if you already have multiple partitions then you can skip this section). This may involve data loss depending on your approach. If you use the ‘classic’ DOS approach using FDISK (a disk partitioning tool), you will lose ALL data on your hard drive, guaranteed. On the other hand, if you use a commercial utility such as Partition Magic (www.powerquest.com) there is still the risk that you MAY lose data (it’s not a perfect science yet!) but the risk is not as great. Partition Magic costs about US$69.95 (at the time of writing this column). If you want a quick and easy way to partition, then this is probably the go. Another advantage is that Partition Magic comes with BootMagic which, from what I have read, should make handling multiple operating systems much easier. If you decide to go the Partition Magic way, you probably won’t need much guidance from me as it seems to be a fairly simple package to use. Although, if you are on a tight budget and don’t want to pay for such a utility then we will have to do it the old fashioned way.

So onto the partitioning of your hard drive. Firstly, backup your data! I cannot stress this strongly enough. You WILL lose ALL of your data on your hard drive. After you have done this, you will need to create a DOS boot disk. You can find instructions for creating a boot disk at www.microsoft.com/windows98/usingwindows/maintaining/articles/004Apr/Startup.asp (however, be aware that you will need to have a computer running Windows 98 to create a boot disk with these instructions). The advantage of creating a boot disk under Windows 98 is that it will contain a generic CD-ROM driver. In addition to the files which are put on the disk by following the procedure at the above website, you will also have to copy FDISK.EXE (the partitioning utility) and FORMAT.COM (a disk formatting utility) onto the disk from the WINDOWSCOMMAND directory. Test the disk works by booting off it and make sure that you can access your CD-ROM drive. You can do this by placing a CD-ROM in your drive, changing to the CD drive and then type ‘dir’ to view the contents of the CD. If you are returned a list of all the files on the CD, you are good to go! Now you need to use FDISK to re-partition your hard drive. You will have to delete your current partition and then create two new partitions. Make sure that each partition has enough space so you can install Windows 98 on one partition and Windows 2000 on the other. You may find the instructions at www.newlogic.co.uk/kbase/fdisk/page1.htm useful in helping you use FDISK. Once you have partitioned and restarted, you will need to format your hard drives using FORMAT.COM (as your computer will not currently recognise the format of the drive).

Now that you have your computer drives formatted, you need to install Windows 98. Start by placing the CD in your drive and running the Windows 98 setup program. Install Windows 98 on one of the two partitions. After this has completed and you can boot into Windows, reboot your computer off the boot disk and run the Windows 2000 setup. Install Windows 2000 on the other partition (which should be empty). The Windows 2000 setup will recognise that you have another operating system installed and will set up a boot menu for you accordingly.

(c) If you already have two partitions on your computer then you are saved from going through the above repartitioning procedure. However, you will still need the boot disk. Some people will tell you that you must install Windows 98 before Windows 2000. Although I have successfully installed Windows Me on a separate partition when Windows 2000 was already installed. I have not done this procedure with Windows 98 so I am not sure if it will work. So proceed at your own risk. If you do decide to go ahead, first make sure that your second partition has enough space in which to install Windows 98 - if not,then you will have to repartition your hard drive, which is outlined in scenario (b). I find that it is best to actually wipe all data off that drive - so if you have any applications on that drive you may wish to move the applications (or reinstall the applications) to/on your Windows 2000 partition. I strongly recommend this, as the Windows 98 setup may want to format the partition on which it is being installed. Once you have moved your data across, reboot your computer using the boot disk, place your Windows 98 CD in the drive, and run the Windows 98 setup. Install Windows 98 on the partition which does NOT have Windows 2000 installed. Once the installation has completed, you will find that Windows 98 will load without a menu, asking if you would like to run Windows 2000 instead. The reason this occurs, is that the Windows 98 setup has overwritten your master boot record (the file which lists which operating systems you have installed). To fix this, reboot to DOS using your computer’s boot disk and then put the Windows 2000 CD in the drive. Load the Windows 2000 setup. From the menu which appears, select the option to ‘Repair’ the installation. This will fix the MBR and give you a nice boot menu on startup!