Dual boot, exist win10 + win7 from image on different drives

I have win10 installed and running and I’d like to create a dual boot by restoring an image that I made of my old win7 system immediately before upgrade to win10 and then doing a clean install on a new SSD. I realize that I will need to buy a win7 key and I plan to use an OEM version that I will purchase from MicroCenter but before I do I’d like to know if I understand the process correctly.

1. Disconnect the SSD where win10 is installed and then restore the image of win 7 to the m2 SSD where it was originally installed, but do not boot from it yet. This now has H as a drive letter.

2. Reconnect the win10 SSD and let it boot up and then open a commend prompt (admin) and enter:

3. Bcdboot H:\Windows /d/addlast

4. Adjust the timeout with msconfig.

5. Update the license for the win7 using the new OEM key.

Do I have it right?

There is no need to disconnect the primary (first) SSD, and you only need to restore the OS partition only to the second SSD. You don't need any of the other partitions that might have been imaged.

NavyLCDR said:

There is no need to disconnect the primary (first) SSD, and you only need to restore the OS partition only to the second SSD. You don't need any of the other partitions that might have been imaged.

TY NavyLCDR. I was wondering about the strategy of restoring only the Win7 OS partition. Now I know.
Bob

SoFine409 said:

TY NavyLCDR. I was wondering about the strategy of restoring only the Win7 OS partition. Now I know.
Bob

Unless you are going to physically boot that drive from UEFI, all you need is the OS partition. In your configuration the computer will boot from the first SSD and load a boot menu that will load the OS partition you pick.

NavyLCDR said:

Unless you are going to physically boot that drive from UEFI, all you need is the OS partition. In your configuration the computer will boot from the first SSD and load a boot menu that will load the OS partition you pick.

Worked perfectly and saved me a little bit of disk space. I also used your previous tip of bcdboot %windir% to get a graphical menu.