No bootloader for Windows?

On another post, I was asking about running a Windows 2000 Pro as a second OS with XP Pro SP3 that I already have on my Dell Latitude D610. I have over 80GB of free space on my drive. However, another member stated that I would need to install the oldest OS first, then XP, then need a separate bootloader on top of that. Not second guessing the other member's response, but seeking a second opinion. Is this true? On my older laptop (Latitude C640), I have Windows 2000 Pro, Linux Mint and Ubuntu, all on a 40GB drive and it runs flawlessly. When I bought that laptop to learn Linux on, it had XP Pro on it and not needing a second one, I placed Win 2K on it, followed by the other two. All I want is a second option on my main laptop, so if one goes bad, I'll have the other. And if the member who advised me is right, how can a billionaire corporation like Microsoft let all these upstarts out do them. No simple bootloader? Firefox is gaining on them rapidly in the browser department, a strong second place now. And they are staffed mostly by volunteers and are largely funded by donations. How can this happen with all the money that Microsoft has? I guess I better stop, I'm not a Microsoft basher, but I'm beginning to question their intelligence on things. If they wanted to, they could have built a "lite" Windows 7 for older laptops, but they didn't. I would've bought it had they did. Anyway, I just want a second opinion on this. If what the other member said is true, it's not worth messing with. Thank you for reading my thread and hopefully, there's a solution for my question.

 

The Windows bootloaders are backwards compatible, not forward. One reason I see is that if something goes wrong with a forward looking bootloader, the whole system can be wrecked.

You might find that if you get a bug in your current system you probably won't have any alternative than to start formatting.

When they work, they work well, when they don't I think you will find you are on your own.

Me, I follow the recommendations, but now that I can boot to individual HDDs using the BIOS, I put different OSes on different HDDs, that avoids bootloaders altogether.

Matt