dual booting windows 7 and 10

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  1. Posts : 84
    Windows 10 Home
       #1

    dual booting windows 7 and 10


    Hello,

    Apologies if this is in the wrong area, I am new to this site so please move this if appropriate.

    I have recently just upgraded to a new laptop, due to my old laptop (4 years old, running windows 7) has been giving me overheating issues for what seems like an eternity. This new laptop, a HP with intel i7, has Windows 10.

    The laptop runs a lot cooler than my old Windows 7 laptop however some of the older games that I have, which work fine on windows 7, do not on windows 10.

    Since my laptop has a 2TB hard drive, I am thinking about dual booting Windows 10 and 7 on the same laptop. I know this is possible, but I have never performed a dual boot setup on a laptop before and am worried I might mess things up.

    Can someone on here please give me some detailed help on performing a dual boot? This would assume partitioning the hard drive into (C) Windows 10 (approx. 1TB), (D) Recovery partition for 10 (already installed) and (F) 1TB for Windows 7. (The E drive is my DVD writer.)

    Thanks in advance for your help!
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  2. Posts : 0
    Dual Boot 10 Pro v1607 10 Pro rs2 build 14971
       #2

    Hi spotify95, welcome to Ten Forums. These are from the tutorial forums. The first to add a partition. Partition or Volume - Create New - Windows 7 Help Forums . The second to dual boot. Just substitute win 7 for win 10 where it appears since the tutorial is for adding a win 10 to an existing win 7 system. Windows 10 - Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Windows 8 - Windows 10 Forums .
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 84
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #3

    JohnC said:
    Hi spotify95, welcome to Ten Forums. These are from the tutorial forums. The first to add a partition. Partition or Volume - Create New - Windows 7 Help Forums . The second to dual boot. Just substitute win 7 for win 10 where it appears since the tutorial is for adding a win 10 to an existing win 7 system. Windows 10 - Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Windows 8 - Windows 10 Forums .
    Hello,

    Thank you for the helpful advice. I will have those two tabs open on my windows 7 laptop so that it is easier to follow the instructions to dual boot. As this is the first time I have ever dual booted a laptop.

    I'll let you know how I get on.

    One last question, which is slightly related: once I have set up the dual boot system, will I need to install any drivers or will they install themselves?
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  4. Posts : 3,506
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 21H1 (May 2021 build 19043.1083)
       #4

    You will have to install drivers for Windows 7 since it is a separate installation. It has no difference if it was taking the whole hard disk instead of dual boot.

    To summarize the steps for dual boot:

    1) Shrink Windows 10 partition to make room for Windows 7
    2) Create a new partition on the empty space and format this to NTFS
    3) Insert Windows 7 DVD, start setup and select Custom installation (you cannot upgrade Windows 10 anyway since it is later version).
    4) When presented with your disk partitions, select the new partition and proceed to install Windows 7
    5) Install all drivers starting from the chipset and then graphics.
    6) Install any application you will need (remember this is a separate Windows installation).
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  5. Posts : 84
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #5

    spapakons said:
    You will have to install drivers for Windows 7 since it is a separate installation. It has no difference if it was taking the whole hard disk instead of dual boot.

    To summarize the steps for dual boot:

    1) Shrink Windows 10 partition to make room for Windows 7
    2) Create a new partition on the empty space and format this to NTFS
    3) Insert Windows 7 DVD, start setup and select Custom installation (you cannot upgrade Windows 10 anyway since it is later version).
    4) When presented with your disk partitions, select the new partition and proceed to install Windows 7
    5) Install all drivers starting from the chipset and then graphics.
    6) Install any application you will need (remember this is a separate Windows installation).
    Hi there, thanks for the summary of things.

    Where would I be able to find the drivers from? Would it be somewhere in the Windows 10 part, or would it be from HP's website? I have never done a dual boot system before and don't want to mess things up.

    Thanks!

    edit: I've found the drivers page here: HP Notebook - 15-ac153sa (ENERGY STAR) Drivers and Downloads | HP® Customer Support
    so once I've dual booted with Windows 7, do I just go to that website and install the drivers from there? I don't have a driver CD or anything, the only thing that came with the laptop is a windows 10 recovery USB stick, which isn't needed at the moment as I am planning to dual boot 10 with 7.
    Sorry if this sounds a bit daft but I've never done a dual boot before and don't want to mess up my laptop.
    Last edited by spotify95; 29 Nov 2015 at 10:17.
      My Computers


  6. Posts : 3,506
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit 21H1 (May 2021 build 19043.1083)
       #6

    Yes you can download the drivers from HP and install them. You should be fine. Avoid any useless utilities that consume memory. Install only the Quick Launcher or similar to enable the key combinations.
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  7. Posts : 84
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #7

    JohnC said:
    Hi spotify95, welcome to Ten Forums. These are from the tutorial forums. The first to add a partition. Partition or Volume - Create New - Windows 7 Help Forums . The second to dual boot. Just substitute win 7 for win 10 where it appears since the tutorial is for adding a win 10 to an existing win 7 system. Windows 10 - Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Windows 8 - Windows 10 Forums .
    Hello,

    On the dual boot setup I am getting error 0x6: Windows could not update the installation files. To Install Windows, close Setup and restart the installation. Any ideas?

    spapakons said:
    Yes you can download the drivers from HP and install them. You should be fine. Avoid any useless utilities that consume memory. Install only the Quick Launcher or similar to enable the key combinations.
    Hi, thanks for the advice.

    When I am trying to initiate the installation of Windows 7, I am getting the error above. Any ideas?
      My Computers


  8. Posts : 18,424
    Windows 11 Pro
       #8

    spotify95 said:
    Hello,

    On the dual boot setup I am getting error 0x6: Windows could not update the installation files. To Install Windows, close Setup and restart the installation. Any ideas?
    Your "system reserved" partition that holds the boot files is probably too small. If you post a screenshot of your disc management screen showing your partitions, we can tell for sure. It easiest to use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to shrink whatever partition you need to in order to make the system reserved partition bigger.
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  9. Posts : 84
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #9

    spapakons said:
    Yes you can download the drivers from HP and install them. You should be fine. Avoid any useless utilities that consume memory. Install only the Quick Launcher or similar to enable the key combinations.


    NavyLCDR said:
    Your "system reserved" partition that holds the boot files is probably too small. If you post a screenshot of your disc management screen showing your partitions, we can tell for sure. It easiest to use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to shrink whatever partition you need to in order to make the system reserved partition bigger.


    Hello,

    Below is the screenshot of my disk management screen. Drive F is where I am putting Windows 7 and Drive G is where I have mounted my ISO file for Windows 7.

    Can you tell from there which is my system partition and in which case what do you recommend for resizing of the system partition?

    dual booting windows 7 and 10-disc-management.png
      My Computers


  10. Posts : 18,424
    Windows 11 Pro
       #10

    spotify95 said:
    Drive G is where I have mounted my ISO file for Windows 7.

    Hope that helps.
    In order to do a clean install and set up dual booting of Windows 7 you are going to have to boot from a Windows 7 installation USB/DVD. Burn a DVD or make a bootable USB from the Windows 7 ISO file and boot from it.

    Your system reserved partition should be the first "EFI System Partition". 260mb is probably big enough. You can try making it 350mb by removing 90mb from the front of the Windows C: partition and adding it to the EFI System Partition using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free, but the first thing I would try is booting from a Windows 7 USB or DVD made from the ISO. IMGBURN works well for making DVD's, RUFUS is pretty good for making bootable USBs.

    Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free
    The Official ImgBurn Website
    Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way
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