Dual-booting OS X & Windows XP – Limited to 10.6 Snow Leopard?

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I have an October 2008 vintage MacBook Pro 17-inch*, which will shortly be revitalised with an OCZ Vertex 4 512GB solid state drive, and with the boost in available disc space, I’m exploring options for dual-booting OS X and Windows.

* Model ID: MacBookPro 4,1 – Order No: MB766LL/A – Mfg. Part No: A1261 – full spec at EveryMac:
» MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.5 17" (08) Specs (Early 2008, MB166LL/A, MacBookPro4,1, A1261, 2199) @ EveryMac.com

I have installation discs for:
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
• Windows XP Home Edition SP2

My understanding is that the Boot Camp version in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will allow me to set up dual-booting between these two OS versions. My natural geek instinct would be to upgrade OS X → 10.7 Lion → 10.8 Mountain Lion, but as I understand it the Boot Camp versions in 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion only support Windows 7.

Q. Does this mean that if a successfully dual-booting ‘10.6 Snow Leopard + Windows XP’ MacBook Pro has its OS X upgraded (→ 10.7 Lion → 10.8 Mountain Lion), it will no longer dual-boot Windows XP?

BTW, I’m aware that I can run a virtualised Windows XP inside Oracle VM VirtualBox under OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion (and other virtualisation software is also available); I’m interested in the reduced-complexity full-throttle option of dual-booting Windows XP.
 

bobtomay

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Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
If you install XP via BootCamp from 10.6, it will continue to boot after you upgrade OS X.
Upgrading OS X will have no affect on an existing BootCamped Windows install.

BootCamp in 10.7 & 10.8 simply doesn't provide the drivers for XP any longer.
 

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