Switching between vista and XP

I have both Os installed yet I cant find a way to switch between the two without using the disk to repair. shouldnt there be a function key or a window during startup to choose which OS to boot?

yes, there is a boot menu, but I think it depends what order you install the OSes in.

what is the order? does the boot order mattter also?(cdrom, hardware, removable)

no boot order does not matter. I've never really used vista so I don't know if this still applies, but to dual boot windows 98 and XP you always had to install 98 first (and on C:)

You have them on seperate partitions, right?You need:http://www.vistabootpro.org/Vista and XP or any other OS have different Boot systems.-Patton

i installed both on C partition but in seperate windows folders ("window" is xp) ("windows" is vista)

you can't do that, it will cause all sorts of problems.

well the only way ive been able to access both is through the repair option on the disk so yeah that would explain alot. could I install xp on my usb drive since its large enough. I dont feel like buyinh a whole new hard drive.

that isn't a good idea, windows continually accesses the drive it is installed on and your USB drive would wear out very quickly. Thats if your computer can even boot from a USB drive (some can; some can't)

you need partitions on your drive install xp first then vista and vista actually gives you an option for dual booting or something like that, i wanted to do the same with my new pc but haven't built it yet anyway i think i still have the link to a tutorial let me just look....
hang on.......
here it ishttp://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vistahope it helps

so how do I get more than one partitiion on the drive? at setup it only shows the c drive partition.

Partitioning drives generally involves formatting, so you need to back up everything on the disk

you can make a partition at boot or you can use one of the hundreds of programs thet patition your drive

ah there's a way explained in that tutorial thanx that'll help alot.