Dual Boot Windows 7 on a pre-installed Windows 10 machine

[azz1844]

My parents have bought a new laptop with Windows 10 pre-installed, but for a number of reasons I would like to install Windows 7 on it for them to use, while also keeping Windows 10.

I have found a lot of tutorials for dual-booting Windows 10 with Windows 7 when 7 is already installed, but I am yet to find a tutorial for dual-booting Windows 7 when 10 is already installed.
Is the process pretty much identical? Are there any issues related to dual booting with pre-installed Windows 10 (e.g. have Microsoft done something sneaky to make dual-booting more difficult)? Has anyone tried it? Does anyone have a reliable tutorial?

(I do have some past experience of multi-booting with both XP/7 and XP/7/Ubuntu combinations, but it was a while ago so I would need a brush-up either way).

 

[cdabc123]

easiest thing is to install vmware player and have 7 running ontop of 10 if that dosnt work for your situation. go to device manager> storage> and shrink the partition of you main disk by however large you want your 7 os to be then reboot, open bios, boot from the cd or usb win 7 is on, get to where it asks you to select disk, select the unallocated space you created, let it install, reboot you should now have a choice between 10 and 7 before windows loads

 

[azz1844]

easiest thing is to install vmware player and have 7 running ontop of 10 if that dosnt work for your situation. go to device manager> storage> and shrink the partition of you main disk by however large you want your 7 os to be then reboot, open bios, boot from the cd or usb win 7 is on, get to where it asks you to select disk, select the unallocated space you created, let it install, reboot you should now have a choice between 10 and 7 before windows loads

Thanks for posting. I would much rather have Windows 7 as a separate bootable option than running in a virtual machine. Regarding shrinking the partition and installing Windows 7 in the unallocated space - do I also need to repair boot sectors and install a boot manager like EasyBCD like in the old days? Or do Windows 10 and/or 7 have their own ways of managing multiple OS?

 

[wpgwpg]

If you install Windows 7 in a separate partition, you'll normally lose the ability to boot Windows 10 because the Windows 7 install doesn't know what to do with 10. But you can run EasyBCD and add Windows 10 to the boot sequence.

Good luck.

 

[cdabc123]

easiest thing is to install vmware player and have 7 running ontop of 10 if that dosnt work for your situation. go to device manager> storage> and shrink the partition of you main disk by however large you want your 7 os to be then reboot, open bios, boot from the cd or usb win 7 is on, get to where it asks you to select disk, select the unallocated space you created, let it install, reboot you should now have a choice between 10 and 7 before windows loads

Thanks for posting. I would much rather have Windows 7 as a separate bootable option than running in a virtual machine. Regarding shrinking the partition and installing Windows 7 in the unallocated space - do I also need to repair boot sectors and install a boot manager like EasyBCD like in the old days? Or do Windows 10 and/or 7 have their own ways of managing multiple OS?

windows knows how to manage it. it will dysplay a screen to let you choose before it loads

 

[Math Geek]

all you have to do is create a new partition for win 7 and then install win 7 to that partition. the installer will know that win 10 is there and insert win 7 into the boot menu automatically.

you will have to shrink the current win 10 drive to make the space for the win 7 partition. this is done through disk management (type that into the search bar). right click the win 10 drive and select "shrink volume". tell it how much space to free up and click through. then right click the new unallocated space and format it giving it a drive letter and name it "Win 7" so you'll be sure you have the right space to install to later.

now reboot to your win 7 disk/usb and point the installer at your empty "win 7" partition. when it's finished instaling you'll get a multi boot screen at start-up that gives you the option of which os to boot. once booted up to either os, type "msconfig" into the search bar and select the "boot" tab. then select the drive you want to be the default to boot to by selecting it and chosing the "make default os" button. you can also chose this from the boot menu if your quick. it has a clickable menu for chosing boot options as well, such as how long to wait for you before auto-booting to your default os.

that's it, now your dual booting

 

[wpgwpg]

Unless there's been a recent change to the Windows 7 install process, I know I had to run EasyBCD after installing 7 in another partition when I already had 10 up and running. I did that Win 7 install probably 6 months ago on a test desktop. If you find this to be the case, EasyBCD is a small program that's easy to download and run, so it's no big deal.

 

[azz1844]

Unless there's been a recent change to the Windows 7 install process, I know I had to run EasyBCD after installing 7 in another partition when I already had 10 up and running. I did that Win 7 install probably 6 months ago on a test desktop. If you find this to be the case, EasyBCD is a small program that's easy to download and run, so it's no big deal.

Hi, thanks for posting. It seems like you had a slightly different experience to some people (maybe due to hardware configuration or the version/update or Windows 7/10 you used?).
Can you briefly tell me what exactly you did? So you had Windows 10 already, installed Windows 7 (either from bootable media or from within Windows 10), then after Windows 7 was installed what was the situation in regards to booting? Was it then booting straight into Windows 7 and ignoring 10? Or vice versa? Did you simply install EasyBCD from inside Windows, after which it was available at boot?

 

[wpgwpg]

Azz1844, I have a test desktop that has a triple boot with 7, 8.1, and 10 Pro. I had 8.1 and 10 installed, then made a new partition on a 240 GB SSD and installed Windows 7 Home Premium. When I booted after installing, it booted to Win 7 with no option to boot to the other 2. So then I installed EasyBCD and did a quick addition of the 8.1 and 10 systems. EasyBCD has been free for years, that's how I got my version 2.2. You do have to register at the Neosmart web site to get the free version though. It's easy enough to do, and EasyBCD is pretty quick and easy to use.

Good luck.