How to dual boot with Windows Vista and Windows 7.

I just added this dual boot system to my machine. It's not too technically difficult to be able to setup dual booting between two operating systems. You're going to need a little knowledge on how to resize your partition to be able to fit both OS's on your hard drive. I'm going to walk you through each step in setting up a dual boot setup.

Step 1 - The first thing you will need to do is get a copy of the Windows 7 RC that is on Microsoft's website. This will be an .ISO file so you will need to either burn it to a disc or boot it from a USB drive. There will a 32bit option and 64bit option of the OS for you to download. Make sure you know if you processor supports 64bit or not.

Step 2 - Once you have the Windows 7 .ISO file downloaded, it is time to burn it to a disc. There are lot of free .ISO burning programs out there. A simple Google should land you on a program that will burn this file.
Step 3 - Now comes the part that could be tricky for some. Resizing your partition. Hopefully these steps will be easy for everyone to follow.

Before you mess with your partitions, it's never a bad idea to back up your valuable data

1. Click the Start Menu
2. Right click on "Computer"
3. Then click "Manage"
4. Click "Continue" if you have UAC controls turned on.
5. Navigate in the pane on the left and find "Storage". Open up that menu and then click "Disk Management"


Your window should now look similar to the one above. Your main drive should be C: and you might have a D: recovery drive as well. My drive labeled G: is what I have Windows 7 installed on. As you can see, it was only set to 70 GB.
6. Now decide what partition you would like to resize. When you decide, right click on it and then select "Shrink Volume".
7. After clicking Shrink Volume, the box below will come up. This is where you decide how much space you want to take off of that partition and put towards the new one. You don't need too much space for this. It is recommended to use at least 20GB but the more the better. I used 70GB for mine. (You can also resize these later as needed using the same method as above.) It will be shown in MB's so for example you want to shrink your partition from 250GB to 240GB, you would enter 10000 into the box, shrinking the partition by 10GBStep 4 - Now it's time for the installation of the OS. Insert the CD that you burned the Windows 7 image file on and put it into your CD/DVD drive. Restart your computer and enter the BIOS. (Usually done by hitting del or F12 during the splash screen.) You need to change the boot sequence so it will boot off of the CD and not from the hard drive like normal. Change the 1st boot order to your CD/DVD drive, Save, and Exit the BIOS.
Step 5 - The first screen you come to will prompt you to decide whether you want to Upgrade to a newer version of Windows or a "Custom" Install. You want to choose Custom.
Step 6 - Now, you choose which partition you want to put Windows 7 on. Choose the partition that you just created (It should be easy to recognize because of the size that you set it to.) Click the partition you want then click Next. Now, Windows will handle the rest by itself.

It may take a while to finish the installation but once it is done, you will have a fully functioning dual boot system with Windows Vista and the Windows 7 RC. Remember to go back into the BIOS and change your boot sequence back to normal when you are done. Now, when you start your PC, you will be presented with the option of booting with either OS. Usually there is a default time setting where the default OS will boot after 30 seconds. To learn how to change that amount of time and which OS you want to be the default, click here.



Thanks for reading.