How to do dual boot, Win10 & Win7, with a restored image of one OS?

SoFine409 · 23 Dec 2016

I have a Dell XPS 8700 that came with Win 7. Before I did the Win 10 upgrade, I ran a drive image of the drive where the OS and the drive where several of the data folders were relocated. I’ve kept those images. After the upgrade, I decided to do a clean install of Win10 and install a larger capacity SSD and another spinner at the same time giving me 2 SSDs and 2 spinners. I decided not to keep the Win7 installation so I wiped the old SSD but kept it installed in the system. Now I would like to restore the original Win 7 image to that original SSD. This is because there are a few older video games that will only play in Win7 because of the Securerom issue with Win10.

My first question is since I am restoring an image, I assume that there will be no dual boot menu created, how can I create one where I will have the GUI menu with Win 10 as the first selection?

Second, when I restore the image of the Win7 OS, I will also need to restore the image of another drive (a spinner) that held the redirected Documents, Downloads, Music, Photos, and Video folders from the Win7 installation. I can foresee that the Win7 installation will not know where to find these folder. If so then is there a way that I can let the Win7 OS know where to find these redirected folders since the disk layout will be different? Since I have done the same redirection with Win10, it is possible that the redirection in both Win10 and Win7 might be pointing to the same spinner. Any thoughts on how I could prevent this from happening?

NavyLCDR · 23 Dec 2016

I cannot help you with the redirected folders. Once you restore the Windows 7 OS partition (you do not have to restore any system reserved or recovery partitions with it, just the OS partition), reboot Windows 10. If Windows 10 does not assign it a drive letter, go into Windows 10 disk management and assign it a drive letter. Since you've got a lot of drives and partitions already, let's assume it gets assigned drive letter J:.

Right click on start icon, select Command Prompt (Admin). In the command prompt window run:

bcdboot J:\Windows /d /addlast
exit

The path in red will be to the Winodws folder of the restored Windows 7 partition. Change the drive letter to whatever it gets. This drive letter has no affect when you boot into Windows 7. Then you can run msconfig (which is system configuration).
Select the boot tab, and you can adjust the boot menu timeout and the order the Windows installations appear.

I would also turn off Windows 10 fast startup as it tends to interfere with dual booting Windows 7:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

Once you boot into Windows 7, it will give itself C: drive. You will probably have to go into disk management and re-arrange your other drive letters. This will not affect the drive letter assignments when booted into Windows 10. I don't know how it will handle the redirected data folders to begin with.

SoFine409 · 23 Dec 2016

NavyLCDR said:

I cannot help you with the redirected folders. Once you restore the Windows 7 OS partition (you do not have to restore any system reserved or recovery partitions with it, just the OS partition), reboot Windows 10. If Windows 10 does not assign it a drive letter, go into Windows 10 disk management and assign it a drive letter. Since you've got a lot of drives and partitions already, let's assume it gets assigned drive letter J:.

Right click on start icon, select Command Prompt (Admin). In the command prompt window run:

bcdboot J:\Windows /d /addlast
exit

The path in red will be to the Winodws folder of the restored Windows 7 partition. Change the drive letter to whatever it gets. This drive letter has no affect when you boot into Windows 7. Then you can run msconfig (which is system configuration).
Select the boot tab, and you can adjust the boot menu timeout and the order the Windows installations appear.

I would also turn off Windows 10 fast startup as it tends to interfere with dual booting Windows 7:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

Once you boot into Windows 7, it will give itself C: drive. You will probably have to go into disk management and re-arrange your other drive letters. This will not affect the drive letter assignments when booted into Windows 10. I don't know how it will handle the redirected data folders to begin with.

Hi NavyLCDR. Thanks for quick reply. Your directions were perfect. Unfortunately the restored Win7 OS wouldn't activate. I should have know that but I added to my experience so it was time well spent.

NavyLCDR · 24 Dec 2016

SoFine409 said:

Hi NavyLCDR. Thanks for quick reply. Your directions were perfect. Unfortunately the restored Win7 OS wouldn't activate. I should have know that but I added to my experience so it was time well spent.

In a command prompt with administrator privileges in Windows 7 you can run:

slui 3

You can use phone activation.

SoFine409 · 25 Dec 2016

NavyLCDR said:

In a command prompt with administrator privileges in Windows 7 you can run:

slui 3

You can use phone activation.

When I booted to Win7 after I put in my password I got the message "Preparing your desktop" and after a few minutes I got to a solid light blue screen with only the ability to log out, restart, or shut down and at the bottom right the build number and something like "this system is not legitimate." I never got to the desktop. I assume that in the background the system contacted the license servers and found the my Win7 license was retired. At least I learned how to do a dual boot and restore the original boot record.

UPDATE 2016-12-25: I unplugged my internet connection to keep the restored Win7 OS from contacting the MS license servers and was able to successfully boot to Win7. I checked the license and it was fine. I rebooted again after reconnecting the network and everything is fine. Now I have to get some advice on the redirection issue because both OSs are seeing the same data folders so I'll post a fresh thread on that. Thanks again for your help. Happy Holidays.