Dual boot problems

[Questions]

Hello,


This weekend I purchased a laptop with a core2duo processor. The laptop
came with windows Vista premier. Due to some applications that I require,
removing Vista and installing FreeBSD is not an issue. (Please leave the
Vista/Microsoft flames at the door)

When I install FreeBSD/i386,  I can then install grub (instead of
FreeBSD's bootloader) and I can have grub "chainload" the Vista
bootloader.  All works fine.

However,  when I try FreeBSD/amd64, grub won't compile (it's architecture
is forced to i386 only in the Makefile.  I haven't dug into why, but I'm
confident there is a reason. Obviously, grub becomes a non-option.  Gag
has the same limitation of being i386 only.

Has anyone successfully been able to dual boot Vista + FreeBSD/amd64?  I'm
eager to have both on the laptop, however I've spent the entire weekend
scouring google, and reinstalling both freebsd (i386 and amd64 versions)
and have reinstalled vista at least 8 times.

I've already thought about using the windows bootloader,  but Vista has
done away with NTLDR/boot.ini in favor of "BCD".   editing BCD seems
non-trivial at best, and frankly I'm getting tired of reinstalling OS's;
so I thought I'd ask around instead of reinventing the wheel.


Thank you in advance for any advice, or input.  Also thanks in advance for
leaving the irrelevant MS hatred out of the thread.

- Jeff Palmer