Dual Boot Windows 10 with Windows 7 or Windows 8  

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  1. Posts : 11,062
    Windows 10 Pro version 22H2 0n one desktop and running Window 11 Pro 22H2 on unsupported desktop
       #270

    No go mate I set the secure to other OS disabled the fast boot (maybe that was a bad move) and set the boot order at the front boot choice and in the Boot section so I think I might be stuck with the cleaned drive and install 10 first the try the 7 from an ISO an use the key from the original OEM DVD sticker.

    What do you reckon?? I suppose the stick could be corrupted - or not because the download went without a hitch.
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  2. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #271

    If you are continually going to try this on one single drive.. oops! Across two Physical drives on the other hand you would isolate each individual drive for isolated clean installs and then consider a 3rd party app? Years back in the XP, Vista days the recommend might have been the NeoTechnologies free version of "EasyBCD" as far as editing the then brand new BCD. EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies

    Upgrading over 8.1 or older to 10 for most on the other hand if not planning to see a dual boot take place the primary is wiped completely even at time seeing a totally brand new primary replace the old. Yet by using the 3rd party tool mentioned a continually working dual between 7 and 10 across two separate drives on each of two entirely separate systems has been working now since the preview builds of 10 without much of any problems note except for the first Nov '15 update build and now with the latest suddenly no longer seeing the taskbar on the secondary monitor! W7 was just booted into lately for updates and didn't run into any problems despite any possible small amount of fragmentation for months of not even being booted into on the main build that is.

    Each of those however had been Custom non OEM type installs following the free upgrade to 10 and later buying separate 10 licenses for multiple machines that saw dual boots across two not one drive eliminating the concern about the Secure Boot getting in the way. Due to the drastic change in the boot sector first seen with 8 the best move for desktop owners while only some labtops allow for a second drive would be to plan two separate drives in order to run any previous version on a desktop note with 10 and not run into seemingly impossible to solve situation since Both OSs are Isolated besides the BCD note from each other.

    Note some don't have BCDs connected between dual and multi boots but simply bring up the bios drive selection to select the drive where the OS they want to load at the moment is then selected for 100% total isolation type dual booting. The formula for automatic detection and addition of an older version however is install the newer after the older goes on where an entry for the older is added into the newer version's own BCD store. Two separate drives however would seem to remain to be the better option to allow for maintaining one OS if another should fail.
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  3. Posts : 68,665
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Thread Starter
       #272

    ICIT2LOL said:
    No go mate I set the secure to other OS disabled the fast boot (maybe that was a bad move) and set the boot order at the front boot choice and in the Boot section so I think I might be stuck with the cleaned drive and install 10 first the try the 7 from an ISO an use the key from the original OEM DVD sticker.

    What do you reckon?? I suppose the stick could be corrupted - or not because the download went without a hitch.
    Just to verify, did you completely disable Secure Boot in your UEFI/BIOS settings?
      My Computers


  4. Posts : 11,062
    Windows 10 Pro version 22H2 0n one desktop and running Window 11 Pro 22H2 on unsupported desktop
       #273

    Yes mate however the only option for that was another OS not disable and it is installing as I type well updating more than anything. Strange thing is it remembered my last screen wallpaper

    So what I thought was gone another chap from support I chatted to rigged it so I could do a clean install from the media I bought so a bit of work to do on it and it would have been done before now if it were not for a power out half way through the first try.

    So what I intend to do is set it up like I did the small laptop make a dedicated partition and install the 7 as the dual boot on it when the machine has 10 finally up to date.

    Now if I am not mistaken I have to download the latest 7 ISO from Microsoft itself because the Heidoc site seems to have belly flopped again. Anyway I shall get there somehow.
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  5. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #274

    Upon looking on this a bit further you could consider seeing 7 on a VM that would be added into the BCD Store as one MS TechNet IT article while mentioning 7 along with Win Server 2008 R2 attaching a vhd might be a thought to consider. Preparing Virtual Hard Disks for Boot

    Another newer reference explains how this would be done. Enable Boot to VHD with BIOS and GPT
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  6. Posts : 11,062
    Windows 10 Pro version 22H2 0n one desktop and running Window 11 Pro 22H2 on unsupported desktop
       #275

    Ok yesterday was VERY long day and three "chats", and two phone calls to Microsoft (and two power dropouts) left me in no doubt that it was not going to be easy to do this dual boot.
    I finally have the 10 installed onto an SSD and also have the 7 installed on another SSD.

    When two drives were mentioned before - myself being just a tad thick thought this meant two actually and physically two drives as in 2xSSD's and from one of the last "chats" I had what two drives actually means is that the C: partition is a "drive" and for example the H: partition is the other "drive" so now I know what is meant by two drives. I do tend to think in a very logical and somewhat childish for want of a better term concrete thinking.

    Now downloading an ISO for 7 Home Premium was the real problem because there seems to be so many sources now. One source Microsoft source downloaded the ISO in chunks of 200 to 350Kbs which meant it went for at least six hours.
    I do have some ISO DVD' s I made some time ago but wanted the freshest copy of course. The official site kept verifying my activation code for the OEM I originally installed on the Ivy bridge got to the 64bit version option chose it and then itkept giving me a message that there was a problem regarding the download and to try later but of course later never came
    I eventually got some joy from the old Heidoc site which took
    time but at least it looks to be the goods.
    Now I would like to know now is what anyone would do in my case - put the 10 ISO onto the SSD that has the 7 Home installed on it (it has a partition ready for that) or should I install the 7 Home ISO onto the SSD that has 10 now installed on it and after I make the other partition first of course.

    I am rather inclined to do the latter as that install took a very long time because I bought the OEM quite a fair time ago - well before Christmas to be exact, and because the 10 install took so long to update (1511 version – currently 1607)
    installing the 7 might prove to be the best way to do this.
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  7. Posts : 68,665
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Thread Starter
       #276

    Hey John, :)

    It really depends on what works best for your needs.

    Have you thought about only installing Windows 10, and having Windows 7 as a Hyper-V VM?
      My Computers


  8. Posts : 11,062
    Windows 10 Pro version 22H2 0n one desktop and running Window 11 Pro 22H2 on unsupported desktop
       #277

    Well forgive my ignorance Shawn I shall have to Google that up because I have no experience in the VM stuff if that means a virtual machine.

    Now the 10 is running really well on the drive I have it on and I am loathe to muck it up by doing a dual boot using it because it took so long to get to where it is now. Simply because unless I am imagining it the graphics and speed of the 10 system for example are way better and quicker of many of the 7 installs I have had on that machine.

    What I might try is a dual boot on the other SSD that has 7 on it first because if that dies in the backside then I will not be losing so much work already put into the 10 install that you in particular and the others have helped me recover what I thought I had lost.

    It was interesting though that there were so many ways of getting ISO's from heaven knows where especially the one I mentioned that downloaded in Kbs that was a reall work in progress but at least I am getting close to what I want on the machine.

    So thanks again for all the help and advice from those who have supported me through what has been at times a very frustrating and frankly seemingly insurmountable problem in my mind we have the two best support forums on the net as it has proved to me over the years I have been a member..
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  9. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #278

    With 10 on one SSD up and running and a working copy of 8 on a second SSD you wouldn't to try spliting the second SSD up in the first place but either the boot entry for 7 into the 10 BCD store or selectively stop at the F12 boot menu and choosing the hard drive option there select which drive has the version you want to run for that session. One will be set as the default boot drive in the bios setup already while if 10 is default you stop at the F12 to go in and select the 7 drive.

    The suggestion for setting a VHD up or running 7 in a VM on 10 allows you to not only 7 on one VM but other OSs on several VMs to still have 10 left untouched since the VMWare Workstation Player 12.5 being the latest can be looked over at: VMware Workstation Player - VMware Products

    This allows flexibility as far as running multiple OSs without worry of setbacks when one OS won't run since it takes place on in a Virtual environment. For the most part at this late date I hardly even boot into 7 Ultimate on the main build with 10 Pro or on the second remotely operated at times 10 Pro with 7 Pro dual boot seen there.

    On both machines it was pre-planned out to have more then OS drive on the main build that replaced an older Vista build while the second mini tower to come later was originally intended for portable use. When 10 appeared however and drives had been added as well as upgraded on the main plus external HDs added hardware as well as seeing the second drive added into the mini tower allowed for seeing both versions running while instead of portability the purpose was changed to testing things like each Preview build to come along and now mostly each new update.

    Part of the hardware upgrades while the second desktop saw the memory go up from 4gb to 8gb performance dimms the main saw the two 1tb storage drives replaced by a pair of larger 2tb to then allow storage and manual backups of things but also see both system images and ISOs for each update and even other OSs as well to run on VMs. One of the hardware updates seen was taking out the pair of 4gb dimms of one brand to see four 4gb dimms of another preferred boost the ram capacity to allow more memory to be available for even running more then one VM at the same time on the dual monitor system for cross comparisons of things.

    Does that sound complicated a bit? Actually setting up a Windows VM is not as difficult for the most part as you might assume. Some basics like allocating enough ram and seeing that enough drive space for the VHD file where the VM runs is allowed for then is followed by the basic steps needed to install the OS. One thing 10 offers now is much better support for VMs then 7 saw where MS first introduced the Windows Virtual PC with the full description of that seen at: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ows-virtual-pc

    Since then however MS has seen quite of improvement with the replacement Hyper-V with the guide for that found right here at 10F. Hyper-V virtualization - Setup and Use in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Virtualization Tutorials
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  10. Posts : 11,062
    Windows 10 Pro version 22H2 0n one desktop and running Window 11 Pro 22H2 on unsupported desktop
       #279

    Yes Night Hawk I have gone into Kari's tutorial on VM's and it does look very complicated and I have asked a few basic questions on things like will my AV be protecting the VM as installed in 10 - does it operate through the cloud (if so not interested) - is it easy to go from one OS to another from a an icon on the taskbar etc etc

    I just don't want to get into it as this install is working so well right now except I am getting that losing post replies as I just did and before but turning off a Kaspersky feature is seeming to be the answer to that. It would be great to have an easier way of dual booting as it were while still using the same SSD.
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