It would be unreasonable for MS to not allow Win 7/8 + 10 dual boot

badrobot said:

What I meant was, it's ok to dual boot 7 & 8. But if you add Win 10 preview in the equation and with all those build upgrades, it can mess up the boot setup.


Just like you, I install Win 10 on a separate SSD and pullout the other drives when I do an upgrade or clean install of it to avoid those dual boot mess.

Attachment 22481

LOL That picture reminded me that your the reason I changed my drive system. I purchased those SSD adapter hot plug setups at your suggestion and they work beyond great. Don't have to open the case to unplug drives when doing these installs. I have one regular harddrive that I use for backup images, I even purchased an adapter for that.

bromanbro said:

MS wants people on 10, not duel booting with older versions of Windows

I want to win Lotto also.

CountMike said:

So buy a ticket first !

Buy one every week but I have the same chances of winning as not dual booting if I want to.

Dual-booting success depends on whether or not MS actually "deactivates" the license of the "older" OS as part of the "upgrade". If they do, sooner or later, when you reboot into the older OS, it won't work anymore.

I'm planning on using Win10 daily after the RTM, but I don't want to permanently give up the use of Win8.1 as part of the process. So, I'm planning on buying another Win8.1 license -- to continue to use it.

Funny thing is, I've checked with the vendors of other products I use, and they are OK with me using the same license across multiple OSs, as long as those are on the same PC.

Mark Phelps said:

Dual-booting success depends on whether or not MS actually "deactivates" the license of the "older" OS as part of the "upgrade". If they do, sooner or later, when you reboot into the older OS, it won't work anymore.

I'm planning on using Win10 daily after the RTM, but I don't want to permanently give up the use of Win8.1 as part of the process. So, I'm planning on buying another Win8.1 license -- to continue to use it.

Funny thing is, I've checked with the vendors of other products I use, and they are OK with me using the same license across multiple OSs, as long as those are on the same PC.

I dual boot with my Win 7 license. I will upgrade with my Win 8.1 Pro license (one of them) so won't be an issue.

badrobot said:

It's only a pain if you are dual booting 7/8 and Win 10 insider Preview either on the same or separate drive. Win 10 messes up the boot manager every upgrade. I do run multi-OS but I don't set it up for dual/triple boot. I just select a boot drive on startup. However, it's not really very difficult to fix a boot problem. It's just a waste of time doing it over and over again.

It is not the installations in a dual boot setup of WIO on one drive and W7/8 on the other, no problems experienced here.
The problems arise when Windows needs to Update, this in my experience is as you state, it messes up booting, this could be a deliberate ploy by M$ to deter this practice.
Until the official release it is difficult to know what is and is not possible
See below latest Gabe statement