How to Dual Boot Windows Vista And Windows 7
For those of you who have waited long for the beta release of Windows 7, Micosoft has finally released the link for you to download a copy to test. In case you have not downloaded, here is the link:
- Windows 7 beta 32-bit version
- Windows 7 beta 64-bit version (the download is no longer available)
The file size is about 2.4GB in size, so make sure you are on a broadband connection and have several hours to spare. You will have to burn it into a DVD to use it.
Once you have downloaded it, you will have to install it on a working machine in order to access the full functionality. As this is still a beta release and not suitable for daily production use, it is not wise to erase or upgrade your existing Vista to Windows 7. A good way is to create a dual boot system where you can choose to boot into Vista or Win 7. Here’s how it’s done:
Shrink your Vista and create new partition
In your Vista, go to Start -> Control Panel. Click on the System and Maintenance.
Scroll down all the way to find the Administrative Tools. Create on the Create and format hard disk partitions. You should see information about your current hard drive partitioning.
Right click on the chart diagram and select Shrink volume.
A window will pop up to ask you to enter the amount of space to shrink. This is the size that you want your new partition to have. For Win 7, you will need at least 10GB of hard disk space. Click Shrink after you have confirmed the shrinking size.
Back to the Disk Management window, you should see two partition now: one is the C drive and a new unallocated partition. Right-click on the Unallocated partition and select New Simple Volume
Set the volume size of the new partition and click Next.
Next, it will ask you to specify the drive letter of the new partition. To avoid confusion with the drive letter of the CD-ROM, I decided to go with G:. You can set your own drive letter though.
In the next screen, you can specify the file format and Volume label. It is recommended to change the Volume Label to something that is easy to identify, such as Windows 7.
The partitioning will now start. Once it is done, you should see something like this.
Close everything. Place in the Windows 7 DVD and restart the computer.
Installing Windows 7
Boot up your computer using the Windows 7 installer DVD (you might have to configure the BIOS to get the computer to boot from CD-ROM). Let’s the installer run and follow the instruction until you reach the point where it asks you to select the installation partition.Make sure you select the partition that you have just created (not the Vista partition).
Finish up the installation. It should be done in about 30 minutes time.
When it’s done, it will auto-restart. On the boot up screen, you should be able to choose between Windows Vista or Windows 7.
To dual boot windows XP and windows 7
The procedure is the same as the dual-boot between windows XP and Vista.
Accessing Windows Vista partition from Windows 7
When you boot into Windows 7, you will find that you won’t be able to access Vista partition. This is because in Windows 7, both the partitions are registered as Drive C:, thus it only displays the partition that the system boots up with. To solve this issue, simply go to Disk Management and change the drive letter of the Vista partition.
In your Windows 7, go to Disk Management.
Right-click on the Vista partition (the one with the blank entry) and select Change Drive letter and Paths
Click Add to assign a drive letter to the Vista partition.
Save and close all windows. The Vista partition should appear in your Explorer now.
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Tags: dual boot, Partition Management, windows 7, windows vista
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[Click to close]25 Responses
Great guide as usual. I used magicdisc, mounted the .iso on Vista and installed it on the other partition I prepared for Windows 7.I find, the new OS a little bit more responsive then Vista and am impressed so far.
Although,I must say that I still love me some Unix!
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Damien Reply:
January 13th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Thanks for you kind words.
Same as you, I am rather impressed by Windows 7, especially the user interface. It is definitely a much needed improvement since their flop in Vista. Nevertheless, my favorite OS is still Linux, or Ubuntu to be exact.
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Hi, I downloaded the iso and burned it to a dvd, but I was wondering if instead of creating another partition and dual-booting it, can’t I just run it inside of a virtual machine?
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Damien Reply:
January 15th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Yes, you can, but you won’t be able to test the full functionality of the OS. Some of the functionality (such as AeroPeek) required 3D acceleration to function.
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could this be used on windows 7 if it doesnt crash?
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Damien Reply:
January 20th, 2009 at 1:08 am
Yup. It should work on Windows 7 as well.
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The ISO downloads from this site don’t require a product key, or do we need to go get those from MS?
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Damien Reply:
January 20th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Without the product key, you still can download, install and use it, but it is only functional for 30 days.
With the product key, the software is valid for 6 months.
Lifehacker has documented how you can get the product key, you can check it out. Not sure if the method still works.
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Is there a way to burn the ISO to a portable hard drive? or do you have to use a dvd?
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ive burned the files to the disc, and it loaded at booting on a desktop i installed it on. But it wont work on my hp dv9700… instead of loading at boot, it just keeps booting vista… i can run the installer from within vista.. but will that give me a chance to install it on the seperate partion or will it wipe my vista out???
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Damien Reply:
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:12 am
Did you set your computer to boot up from cd-rom? If yes, it should prompt you to press “enter” to go into the setup mode.
You will have to go to the BIOS to change the system configuration to boot up from CD-ROM.
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Just a question, how do you remove a dual boot? after I installed windows 7 on a virtual machine I got overconfident and made a dual-boot between 7 and xp, however I want to revert back to 7 on a virtual machine after all, so how do I remove windows 7’s boot option and it’s entire partition?
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You can use the GParted Live CD to erase the Windows 7 partition (and return the partition to the Win XP if you want).
After that, you will have to use the Win XP installer CD to restore the XP bootloader.
Boot up your XP installer CD.
Choose Repair
type in “fixmbr” (without the quote) in the command prompt.
restart the computer
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Is there an easy way to transfer my apps to the new Windows 7 Partition without reinstalling?
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Damien Reply:
January 24th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Not that I know of…
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Hi there
I am trying to dual boot between my currently installed Vista and Win 7. I followed your great steps, but it will only let me shrink 10 Mb!!
I have a 300GB HDD – with 178 GB free. I have tried clicking and looking for options etc but i can’t find any way to shrink for adequate Win 7 space (i was going to do 100Gb approx so i could use it to test games etc, which take up lots of space).
Any ideas???
cheers.
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Damien Reply:
January 25th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
You can try either EASEUS or GParted
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I followed all the directions of patitioning and installing Windows 7 and everything went great and 7 works wonderful, however on a reboot I don’t get a boot option screen and system loads into Vista. Any help would be appreciated.
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Paul Doyle Reply:
January 30th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
After you computer is finished with the POST (BIOS screens, memory, etc), the screen will clear, and your computer will display something like: “Loading…” At this point, try pressing the F12 key, just as you see that “Loading” message, and that will hopefully intercept the Vista boot. Hopefully you wil then get a load screen showing the Windows 7 (and Vista) option. Select Windows 7 (up and down keys, then hit ), and away you go. If it works, use this procedure every time.
Let me know if this works.
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if i want to revert back to single boot Vista or upgrade to windows 7, how do you remove a dual boot.
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Damien Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Reformat the Windows 7 partition (either from the Win Vista partition or use a third party software like Partition magic or Gparted), then reconfigure the bootloader (either with easyBCD or Vista installer DVD)
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I dual boot Ubuntu and Vista. Do you know if I’ll encounter any problems upgrading Vista to Windows 7? I know I have no problems upgrading Ubuntu, but I don’t know about Windows.
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Damien Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
You shouldn’t have any problem upgrading Vista to Windows 7, except that it will wipe off your boot setting. You will need to restore grub (http://maketecheasier.com/how-to-restore-grub-in-ubuntu/2008/04/11) to access the dual boot.
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Ok thanks for the info!
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Hey Damien, thanks for the great steps everything worked perfectly and i am enjoying Windows 7.
I now want to revert back to my original single boot with vista, i saw that you said you need to re-format the windows 7 partition and then fix the boot loader with easyBCD, however i am afraid that in mucking around with all this i will mess some thing up big time. could you please post how to do this step by step if you have the time, or at least put in some basic guidelines about how to re-format the win 7 partition and use easyBCD to fix the boot loader.
Thanks.
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