Installing Win-7 on an existing Dual Boot System

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Following instructions from Windows Secrets, a couple of years back,
I setup dual boot systems using VISTA & XP. Now that
Win-7 is out I’d like to overwrite the VISTA portion of
the configuration with out loosing the XP portion.

My current setup has Vista on the C: drive, XP on the E:
drive and my data (My Documents/Documents) on the
G: drive (This data is shared by both OSes including the
Outlook PST file. I’m using Office 2003 Pro on the XP
partition and Office 2007 Pro on the Vista partition.

When one of the OSes is booted the drive for the other
one is hidden via a registry entry so there isn’t a problem
with the swap files.

What I, and I’m sure other dual booters, would like to know,
is can I install Win-7 with out loosing the XP installation and
will the boot menu show both Win-7 and XP after the installation.

Thanks,

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Are you using a boot manager program to manage the dual booting? If so, which one?

How is the drive being hidden? Did you do that hiding?

The reason I ask is that I have a triple boot system using Vista Boot Pro, with XP, Vista and the Win 7 RC which I will be wiping clean and replacing in a couple of days. I have no hidden drive when any of these OSs is running and I can’t see that I would need to.

Just fishing for a bit more info…

(PS Is there a reason you use a large type font? If it’s a visual need matter then please don’t take offense.)

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Are you using a boot manager program to manage the dual booting? If so, which one?

How is the drive being hidden? Did you do that hiding?

The reason I ask is that I have a triple boot system using Vista Boot Pro, with XP, Vista and the Win 7 RC which I will be wiping clean and replacing in a couple of days. I have no hidden drive when any of these OSs is running and I can’t see that I would need to.

Just fishing for a bit more info…

(PS Is there a reason you use a large type font? If it’s a visual need matter then please don’t take offense.)

I am using the boot loader that ships with windows Vista. As for the hiding of the drives it is accomplished with a Registry Hack, i.e. to hide the C: drive (Vista) when booting XP (on E:)
Key: HKLMSYSTEMMountedDevicesOffline
Value: DosDevicesC:
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

I didn’t think the font was all that big I do it for ease of reading though. It’s not necessary just easier on the eyes. Bruce

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Following instructions from Windows Secrets, a couple of years back,
I setup dual boot systems using VISTA & XP. Now that
Win-7 is out I’d like to overwrite the VISTA portion of
the configuration with out loosing the XP portion.

My current setup has Vista on the C: drive, XP on the E:
drive and my data (My Documents/Documents) on the
G: drive (This data is shared by both OSes including the
Outlook PST file. I’m using Office 2003 Pro on the XP
partition and Office 2007 Pro on the Vista partition.

When one of the OSes is booted the drive for the other
one is hidden via a registry entry so there isn’t a problem
with the swap files.

What I, and I’m sure other dual booters, would like to know,
is can I install Win-7 with out loosing the XP installation and
will the boot menu show both Win-7 and XP after the installation.

Thanks,

See Triple boot XP, Vista, and Windows 7… – Windows 7 Forums. There are details in that thread to make sure your boot menu shows all three OSes.

Joe

--Joe

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Joe,

Thanks for the reply, however I want to deep 6 Vista and replace it with W-7. I guess what the forum is saying is that
I’ll have to use BCD Edit to get Vista to show up on the boot menu.

Bruce

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Ok, I got this done so I thought I’d share the process with you all.

First, I booted into the VISTA partition.
Next I started an “IN PLACE” upgrade {not the best move but easier if it works!}
Results: Excellent with only a few minor tweaks needed.

Tweaks:

1. The upgrade lost the registry entry I used to hide the XP partition (see above) so I had to reapply it – success.
2. The upgrade changed my boot menu so that
A. The description for the XP partition said Eariler Windows Version vs XP PRO and
B. Windows 7 was now the default OS vs XP (this is for my Wife who shares the machine).
Both of these were easily changed with the following BCDEdit commands:
bcdedit /set {ntldr} Description “Windows XP Pro”
bcdedit /default {ntldr}
bcdedit /timeout 45 (this one was for me to allow more time to select Win 7 if I’m not paying full attention at boot.)

[/list][/list]

All in all kudos to MS on this one the upgrade was basically flawless…

Bruce

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

Reply | Quote

Ok, I got this done so I thought I’d share the process with you all.

First, I booted into the VISTA partition.
Next I started an “IN PLACE” upgrade {not the best move but easier if it works!}
Results: Excellent with only a few minor tweaks needed.

Tweaks:

1. The upgrade lost the registry entry I used to hide the XP partition (see above) so I had to reapply it – success.
2. The upgrade changed my boot menu so that
A. The description for the XP partition said Eariler Windows Version vs XP PRO and
B. Windows 7 was now the default OS vs XP (this is for my Wife who shares the machine).
Both of these were easily changed with the following BCDEdit commands:
bcdedit /set {ntldr} Description “Windows XP Pro”
bcdedit /default {ntldr}
bcdedit /timeout 45 (this one was for me to allow more time to select Win 7 if I’m not paying full attention at boot.)

[/list][/list]

All in all cudos to MS on this one the upgrade was basically flawless…

Bruce

Congratulations!!! It is nice to see good news. Thanks for posting your success.

Joe

--Joe

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