Best way to Dual Boot 32-bit Windows 10 with 8.1

klerg said:

is it best to install 8.1 or 10 first ? Also, is it easier to install Windows 8.1 and 10 on separate drives?

There are many ways to do this, some work better than others.

A. You can install one OS and then the other, and Windows will use the same boot and will also modify your boot menu.

B. You can also perform a full install on both drivers, Drive #1 for Windows8.1 and Drive #2 for W10, it's up to you how to do it, there are tutorials for this on the web, you might need to "disable" one drive at the time via your bios for this to work well.

I prefer option B over option A, why? if you depend on one drive only for booting, if this goes bad you are done, while 2 bootable drives might help you there. HOWEVER... there are cases where Windows has some issues booting and restarting because of the information it stores as swap, hibernation and something else, I won't go over all the details, I had issues with this and found articles about it, but when I mention this I notice some users not being aware of it, so... I won't go the extra mile explaining.

There are other options, I will jump straight to my favorite. Be patient, a Virtual Machine is needed temporarily: I use VirtualBox to create the Windows install of my choice and this involves creating a virtual hard drive (VHD), let's say I install W8.1 x64 / W8.1x32, and W10 pro, that's 3 virtual machines with 3 independent virtual hard drives.

Then I just move or copy these files to the physical drive of my preference and proceed to install and configure VENTOY (it's free), this allows me to boot from USB and then select the VHD of my choice, and this will BOOT my entire computer as if the VHD was a physical hard drive with no virtualization program needed (you can install Virtual Box),

Yes, this is what I use, I keep on my drive VHDs with W8.1 / W10 / Ubuntu / Mint, etc, and it's fast, very fast. Check the web for tutorials, some config is needed.

hroldan said:

There are many ways to do this, some work better than others.

A. You can install one OS and then the other, and Windows will use the same boot and will also modify your boot menu.

B. You can also perform a full install on both drivers, Drive #1 for Windows8.1 and Drive #2 for W10, it's up to you how to do it, there are tutorials for this on the web, you might need to "disable" one drive at the time via your bios for this to work well.

I prefer option B over option A, why? if you depend on one drive only for booting, if this goes bad you are done, while 2 bootable drives might help you there. HOWEVER... there are cases where Windows has some issues booting and restarting because of the information it stores as swap, hibernation and something else, I won't go over all the details, I had issues with this and found articles about it, but when I mention this I notice some users not being aware of it, so... I won't go the extra mile explaining.

There are other options, I will jump straight to my favorite. Be patient, a Virtual Machine is needed temporarily: I use VirtualBox to create the Windows install of my choice and this involves creating a virtual hard drive (VHD), let's say I install W8.1 x64 / W8.1x32, and W10 pro, that's 3 virtual machines with 3 independent virtual hard drives.

Then I just move or copy these files to the physical drive of my preference and proceed to install and configure VENTOY (it's free), this allows me to boot from USB and then select the VHD of my choice, and this will BOOT my entire computer as if the VHD was a physical hard drive with no virtualization program needed (you can install Virtual Box),

Yes, this is what I use, I keep on my drive VHDs with W8.1 / W10 / Ubuntu / Mint, etc, and it's fast, very fast. Check the web for tutorials, some config is needed.

Yes, I'm really only looking for how to do it on one drive

That's right, and it does not matter if W8.1 or W10 is installed first as they use the exact same bootdloader too.

Sure, this is something I may end up doing in the not too distant future. And the tip to disconnect one drive while installing the next Windows is needed or else things will go wrong, so will stick to that for now. And it is not too hard to pull off on most laptops.

Yes, someone else told me the same thing to install W8.1 and W10 on two drives instead of one for the same reason if that drive fails then will lose everything, but still have another drive if using two. This sounds a bit thorny and I think has to do with the fact that Windows likes to install so many 'extra' partitions like 'EFI', 'OEM', 'Recovery' and more. I usually turn off hibernation so do not have to deal with that. But cannot use Windows without a swap file, and most of time let Windows handle it.

So it looks like the VHDx route is going to need me to use a Virtual Machine at least time just to make the virtual disk that is too bad. I have VirtualBox also, so I may need to end up making two virtual disks for W8.1 and W10. But I will look up the tutorials on this site, and other ones to see the best way to do this.

Well, the whole W8.1 and W10 OSes will be two .VHDx files so they can be moved to wherever they need to be at this point. Yes, I just heard of Ventoy, and it is a really cool utility for so many things and this being one of main uses for it. Ventoy makes it so you can always boot of the USB, and do not need to go back to a hard drive.

Sure, it is a good option to use in this case. Nice to know it is so fast, as that is what I aim for as well. I doubt a lot of config is needed, but will take a look.

cereberus said:

As I said much earlier, there were a few devices thst were based on 32bit uefi several years ago with only 1 or 2 GB RAM but these had special firmware and NOBODY produces these anymore. These devices (mostly Atom cpus) could not run 64bit.

No 64bit capable pc can run 32bit uefi whatsoever.
Anybody who makes statements like 'if your bios supports it" is talking rubbish.

START OF STORY

32bit only installs on legacy bios (mbr).

END OF STORY

True, my bad somehow I forgot you told me of the devices that had 32-bit UEFI and no more than 2 GB of RAM with the special firmware and of course these are longer made anymore. If has Atom CPU, that sounds like a Netbook to me and does make sense too.


Yes I just wonder when 64-bit PCs became standard.
Or they could simply not know what they are talking about too is not so easy to tell here

I like that story and will only use MBR for 32-bit install and GPT drive

klerg said:

I like that story and will only use MBR for 32-bit install and GPT drive

Whether you are going to use MBR or GPT is governed by the way you BOOT Windows Setup.

Windows 32-bit will NOT give you an option to boot in EFI mode. The LEGACY mode you will boot Windows 32-bit in will NOT let you use GPT. An EFI System Partition will NOT be created in MBR mode. You will have a choice between a separate System reserved partition being used or not.

Windows 64-bit will give you a choice between booting in EFI and Legacy mode. EFI mode will NOT let you use MBR. EFI mode WILL create a separate EFI System Partition.

The NEXT OS installed will NOT create another EFI System/System reserved Partition in both EFI AND Legacy mode.

Here you go. This is clean install of Windows 10 Home 32-bit on an MBR disk. D Drive is a mounted Windows 8.1 32-bit ISO file. The following commands will create a 64 GB VHDX file, install Windows 8.1 32-bit Home to it, and set up dual booting.

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.3636]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.3636

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: DESKTOP-40JQJI9

DISKPART> create vdisk file="C:\Windows8.1.VHDX" maximum=65536 type=expandable

  100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully created the virtual disk file.

DISKPART> attach vdisk

  100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully attached the virtual disk file.

DISKPART> create part pri

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> format fs=ntfs quick label="Windows 8.1"

  100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

DISKPART> assign

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> list vol

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     D   IR5_CCSA_X8  UDF    DVD-ROM     3061 MB  Healthy
  Volume 1         System Rese  NTFS   Partition     50 MB  Healthy    System
  Volume 2     C                NTFS   Partition    511 GB  Healthy    Boot
* Volume 3     E   Windows 8.1  NTFS   Partition     63 GB  Healthy

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

C:\Windows\system32>dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:"D:\Sources\Install.wim"

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.19041.3636

Details for image : D:\Sources\Install.wim

Index : 1
Name : Windows 8.1 Pro
Description : Windows 8.1 Pro
Size : 9,019,796,360 bytes

Index : 2
Name : Windows 8.1
Description : Windows 8.1
Size : 8,971,872,301 bytes

The operation completed successfully.

C:\Windows\system32>dism /apply-image /imagefile:"D:\Sources\Install.wim" /index:2 /applydir:E:\

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.19041.3636

Applying image
[==========================100.0%==========================]
The operation completed successfully.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdboot E:\Windows /d /addlast
Boot files successfully created.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {5e4c1cac-7bfe-11ee-b5b0-00155d01ad00}
displayorder            {5e4c1cad-7bfe-11ee-b5b0-00155d01ad00}
                        {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {5e4c1cad-7bfe-11ee-b5b0-00155d01ad00}
device                  partition=E:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows 8.1
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=E:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {5e4c1cac-7bfe-11ee-b5b0-00155d01ad00}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard
detecthal               Yes

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows 10
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence        {5e4c1caa-7bfe-11ee-b5b0-00155d01ad00}
displaymessageoverride  Recovery
recoveryenabled         Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {5e4c1ca8-7bfe-11ee-b5b0-00155d01ad00}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard

C:\Windows\system32>shutdown /r /t 0

Here are the commands by themselves without the results in between:

Code:

diskpart

create vdisk file="C:\Windows8.1.VHDX" maximum=65536 type=expandable

attach vdisk

create part pri

format fs=ntfs quick label="Windows 8.1"

assign

list vol

exit

dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:"D:\Sources\Install.wim"

dism /apply-image /imagefile:"D:\Sources\Install.wim" /index:2 /applydir:E:\

bcdboot E:\Windows /d /addlast

bcdedit

shutdown /r /t 0

Berton said:

I've never had an issue with 4GB on a 32-bit setup, it was just that Windows couldn't display the full amount. Onboard video adapters take part of the memory. I can't show the results as I just last week gave away my last [10-year-old] Notebook that was set up with 32-bit Win10.

Same here Windows works fine with 4GB and as 32-bit, it is more than just Windows is not able to show the full amount. True, any Onboard video is going to use RAM. THat is fine no big deal soon I may give away or not use my Notebooks that have 32-bit Windows installed on there too.

Volume Z said:

Whether you are going to use MBR or GPT is governed by the way you BOOT Windows Setup.

Windows 32-bit will NOT give you an option to boot in EFI mode. The LEGACY mode you will boot Windows 32-bit in will NOT let you use GPT. An EFI System Partition will NOT be created in MBR mode. You will have a choice between a separate System reserved partition being used or not.

Windows 64-bit will give you a choice between booting in EFI and Legacy mode. EFI mode will NOT let you use MBR. EFI mode WILL create a separate EFI System Partition.

The NEXT OS installed will NOT create another EFI System/System reserved Partition in both EFI AND Legacy mode.

Sure, I get this so need to find out the way that Windows Setup is boot up and how it is.

I see that does make sense for Windows 32-bit to not give EFI mode. Too bad LEGACY mode is not able to let me use GPT but good to know that. Yes, an EFI partition is only possible in UEFI mode. I prefer to not have System Reserved partition and will find a way to get around that as well.

How to get Windows 64-bit to give a choice to boot between EFI and legacy mode ? Sure as EFI needs GPT hope I'm right here. Yes no way EFI mode works without EFI System Partition.

Yes, as there can be only one EFI or System Reserved Partition so that next OS will be added to the boot menu.

cereberus said:

I give up. I think you are trolling now.

Your final statement is garbage.

That's it then. Nope that is just wrong.

What that is not my final statement

Berton said:

How about in Oct. 2021 when Windows 11 was released to the public as x64/64-bit only? Even a number of versions of Linux [there's about 100] are heading to 64-bit only. I haven't seen any x86/32-bit CPUs or computers on the market in some time.

I guess that can be the time that a 64-bit OS became standard but not the hardware. Yes, that is fine if Linux goes 64-bit only and really is no surprise at all to me. Yes, I think 2012 or 2013 was the last time a x86/32-bit CPU was last made.

NavyLCDR said:

Here you go. This is clean install of Windows 10 Home 32-bit on an MBR disk. D Drive is a mounted Windows 8.1 32-bit ISO file. The following commands will create a 64 GB VHDX file, install Windows 8.1 32-bit Home to it, and set up dual booting.

Appreciate this. Yes, my Windows 10 will be Pro but 32-bit and MBR disk too. Sure, Windows 8.1 can mount an ISO file as well. I may end up going the same route as the commands show here and it really is not too many words to type out at all.