Dual boot Win 7 with itself?

[spottydog10_58]

Hi,
Has anybody successfully dual-booted windows 7 with windows 7?
I'd like 2 totally different set ups but it seems to not work

Cheers

 

[The_Prophecy]

If you do it right (this does not take a lot of thinking or configuring to achieve), it works perfectly fine. Create 2 partitions on one drive if you only have one, or use 2 seperate drives and install whatever flavors of Windows 7 you want to each one.

 

[spottydog10_58]

Yes Proph, I can think.
I should have mentioned I made a ghost image of the 1st install.
It's when I installed the ghost image on the second partition that the fun and games started.
i.e missing start up files.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Do you still have the 7 install media? I wouldn't bother Ghosting the first install to another partition, just run the install from the 7 disk again.

 

[spottydog10_58]

Yep, still have the disk, the problem is I tend to ghost and restore quite regularly (both installations)
So i need this to work. Either that or 2 users on the same installation (not keen) but I'd much rather have 2 seperate installs.

 

[newnerd]

You need to buy a second copy of the Windows O.S. The Windows EULA only permits installation of 1 copy of Windows with the provided license key. Even if you successfully get the second installed and booting, when you try to activate it Microsoft will tell you the license is "already in use".....and do you have another license? After 30 days of use a second installation of the same license will not function properly anymore.
If you are using Win 7 RC or Win 7 Beta it might be ok since Microsoft allows install on multiple PCs with the same License.

 

[spottydog10_58]

I have several legal licences, is that OK?

 

[Zoron]

Ghost won't achieve what you want on it's own. You will have to install each copy the way you want and then use Ghost to make images of the setup. Simply ghosting another image of Windows 7 to another partition isn't going to make both of them accessible.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Ghost won't achieve what you want on it's own. You will have to install each copy the way you want and then use Ghost to make images of the setup. Simply ghosting another image of Windows 7 to another partition isn't going to make both of them accessible.

And even if you do manually edit the boot manager to include entries for both Windows installs, using Ghost to deploy from a single install won't work unless you, at a minimum, sysprep the install first before packaging the initial image.

 

[spottydog10_58]

Yes, I would have a seperate ghost image for each installation.
What would the sysprep consist of?

Thanks

 

[spottydog10_58]

bump

 

[prat_ch]

Hi spottydog10_58,
Iam curious if are you able to dual boot "windows 7 with windows 7". if so please let me know, how did you do it, i would like to try..