Dual Boot Between Windows XP and Windows 7

Posted By: Rob Waggoner | Mar 26th, 2009 @ 7:26 PM | 69,832 Views | 19 Comments

Formats:

Now that you've downloaded the Windows 7 beta, let's talk about how you can configure your machine to dual boot between Windows Vista and Windows 7, or even Window XP and Windows 7. The key to multi-boot configurations that involve Windows Vista, Server 2008 or Windows 7 is Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store. The BCD will make or break your configurations, I walk you through setting up your hard drive to support a multi-OS boot configuration. Once you've seen the power of the dual boot scenario, I'd like to point you to a few articles that will provide additional detail. One of the assumptions I made was that an earlier version of Windows already exists and that you will be installing a newer version of Windows (like Windows 7). In the event that you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 already installed and then you install Windows XP, you'll need to check out this article. This article holds true for Windows 7 as well as Windows Vista.

Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933179

If you want to learn all of the details of the bcdedit tool, check out:

BCDEdit Command-Line Options

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709667.aspx

and then of course you'll want to check out the faq as well:

Boot Configuration Data Editor Frequently Asked Questions

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721886.aspx

Rob
http://ts2blogs.com/blogs/rwagg

Tags: bdcedit, Boot Configuration Data Store, Dual Boot, Windows 7, Windows XP

Rating:

wildgirlyonder

Awesome video! I only work tech support, so I need to have different operating systems or several computers. Love Win7!

Teezy

How do I get to that menu that you were in at the start?

And so basically to protect my data, I need to create a separate partition for my data only??

Am I at a high risk of losing my data if I dual-boot? When you said "make sure you don't overwrite your current partition" it kinda relieved me for a sec but I'm still sorta paranoid about this whole thing haha

Teezy

Oh, nevermind; I found the menu.

But uhm..nothing shows up for it..lol. No "C:" "D:" anything..it's just blank....

BitsBytesMore

Great Video......very well explained.

I do have some questions though:

If I start with Windows Vista. Create a new partition, label it and install Windows 7. When I decide I do not want Windows Vista anymore, Can I just log into Win7 and from there delete the Vista partition? What will happen to the BCD?

I'm having doubts because when I installed the dual boot on Computer1 just like you explained, it works perfectly. Now when I installed Win7 on Computer2 as a clean fresh install, I noticed that Win7 uses 100MB for a hidden "System Reserved" partition.

This naturally creates some questions in my mind:

Where is this "System Reserved Partition" in Computer1 with the dual boot?

What will happen if/when I decide I no longer want Vista as part of the dual-boot and I want to go to normal single-boot?

Will the dual-boot menu leave remnants from Vista on the BCD?

I would greatly appreciate some feedback on this......and thanks again for the great video.

bootitup

successfully set up dual boot on a 40gb laptop drive with XP Pro w/ 16 gb on C: and Win7 w/ 24gb on D: partition on a Lenovo ThinkPad T41 w/ 1gb of RAM

running smooth no errors encountered on installation

Had to install additional drivers for XP Pro after OS loaded

Windows 7 installed all drivers. No additional drivers were needed to be installed.

onechoice

This is a terrific explanation!!! Thanks for sharing your "how-to and hard-earned experience" ! You have churned my trepidation into ice cream!

Rocko22

In reply to moratmarit

#Oct 17th, 2009 @ 8:06 AM

Thanks for the barrel full of info!

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PC4LIFE

I have done several dual boot applications from a SBS server apps to Microsoft OS, we run a small pool remodel outfit and have done everything through Microsoft platforms.