Question Dual booting Windows 11 with Windows 7 ?

[PaulDesmond]

I have ordered a new Windows 11 PC with 500G on board MVME. I want to dual boot it with Windows 7 for programs that work better. How easy is it to do this as putting the W7 DVD in to the drive will get it saying "You already have an operating system" or remove it and replace it maybe.

 

[Colif]

Windows 7 has no idea what Windows 11 is. It would probably uninstall it.

In the past, if you wanted to dual boot you would put the oldest on 1st and then newest, it gets messy going backwards.

That and win 7 unlikely to have drivers for the new hardware. IS windows 7 64bit version?

Does PC have a dvd drive?

You are way better off setting up a virtual machine with windows 7 in it, on the win 11 PC.

 

[Lafong]

If you insist on doing this, I'd seriously consider a totally separate hard drive for Windows 7...or a virtual machine.

 

[Misgar]

If you have a relatively old motherboard (pre 2017) and it comes with drivers for Windows 7, install each OS on a different physical hard disk or SSD. Do not try to dual boot both OS off one drive. I stopped doing this after Windows 98/Windows XP days.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-7-wont-work-intels-current-next-gen-cpus/

Of course you'll probably have to tweak Windows 11 in Rufus so it doesn't need Secure Boot and TPM. Older systems are frequently not on Microsoft's list of suitable hardware for their latest OS.

Modern CPUs and motherboard chipsets do not support Windows 7 and it can be very difficult to install 7 without bodging (slipstreaming) the drivers. A few people have managed to do it, but it's not easy and you may lose some functionality, e.g. no USB 3 support.

You may get away with running Windows 7 as a Virtual Machine, but some programs, especially games, need direct access to the GPU, so they may not run in a VM.

Best bet for Windows 7 is to buy an old PC with decent hardware. I keep a range of machines so I can run Windows XP and Windows 7 software/hardware which is not compatible with Windows 10/11.

 

[USAFRet]

I have ordered a new Windows 11 PC with 500G on board MVME. I want to dual boot it with Windows 7 for programs that work better. How easy is it to do this as putting the W7 DVD in to the drive will get it saying "You already have an operating system" or remove it and replace it maybe.

What software is in question here?

Unlikely your new Win 11 system will have native Win 7 drivers.

 

[PaulDesmond]

PC does have a DVD drive. Odd question though. Don’t all modern desktops have them. This will be a W11 64 bit and I have a dual W7 DVD set with both 32 and 64 bit.

This is over my head a bit “You are way better off setting up a virtual machine with windows 7 in it, on the win 11 PC.”

Okay this will come with a MVME 500G windows 11 but also 2 SSDs each 500G.

Not to get too deep but this has to do with Microsoft software police. Windows 7 was imune from these tactics

 

[Colif]

Don’t all modern desktops have them.

no. Not anymore.

I thought that on my last PC and it had a Blue Ray drive that I only used 3 times. Most of the purposes a DVD served can be done with USB drive now. Most new cases don't have slots in them for DVD drives. Many have mesh fronts instead. or are thinner as they don't need to be as wide as an optical drive

I guess you can still buy external optical drives, I haven't looked as I haven't used one in years.


Virtual machine - it lets you install windows 7 in software that acts as if its a real PC. Windows can't tell its not on actual hardware. I have a VM with windows 10 on it on this Windows 11 PC, it lets me run something that don't need to be on this PC, in isolation

its much easier than trying to set up dual boot. Less chance of messing up the PC.

the video I linked above shows how to set one up for win 7
I need to remake my win 10 ones as I will soon have way more storage space and all my old ones are all too small.

https://www.vmware.com/au/topics/glossary/content/virtual-machine.html

 

[USAFRet]

Not to get too deep but this has to do with Microsoft software police. Windows 7 was imune from these tactics

No it wasn't.

A lot of the stuff in Windows 10 got backported into Windows 7.

 

[PaulDesmond]

Just thought I could add, I still have a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and loads of disks for it. Maybe MS will sell Windows 12 on these.

Can't take to many what

I do have an optical drive with an incredibly long 4 inch cable.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I have ordered a new Windows 11 PC with 500G on board MVME. I want to dual boot it with Windows 7 for programs that work better. How easy is it to do this as putting the W7 DVD in to the drive will get it saying "You already have an operating system" or remove it and replace it maybe.

1. Prepare windows 11 install media (it will be necessary later),
2. Prepare a partition, where windows 7 will be installed,
3. Boot from windows 7 install media (in UEFI mode only, legacy boot is not compatible with windows 11),
4. Install windows 7 in prepared partition (bootloader will be updated to windows 7 compatible),
5. Boot from windows 11 installation media and fix bootloadder (bootloader will support both win7 and win11).

 

[DSzymborski]

So do you need Windows 7 for "programs that work better" or do you need it for "Microsoft software police?" It's hard to give a recommendation on the best way to do something when the basic story changes. Whichever one it actually is -- or a third new story -- be *detailed*.

 

[Misgar]

If your new motherboard does not have any good old-fashioned USB 2.0 ports brought out to the rear panel, you probably won't get the Windows 7 setup program to recognise a USB keyboard and a USB mouse, when they're plugged into the USB 3.0 ports.

If you don't have any USB 2.0 ports, try an old PS/2 (6-pin mini-DIN) keyboard and plug it into the one-and-only PS/2 port found on most motherboards. This still leaves you without a mouse during setup, which makes life very difficult.

If you have an ancient serial mouse and a COM port (9-way D-type) on the motherboard, you could try that. You'd then have a working PS/2 keyboard and a serial mouse to setup Windows 7 on a spare SSD.

If you find a forum where someone has managed to bodge drivers to work with Windows 7 on your motherboard's USB 3 chipsets, you could try "slipstreaming" these drivers into the Windows 7 ISO, then burn the modified ISO back to DVD or a USB memory stick.
https://superuser.com/questions/659638/windows-7-slipstream-drivers-to-the-install-dvd-iso

I still think it is much safer to install only one OS per SSD/HDD.

Best of luck - you'll probably need it.

P.S. I still have a large collection of 3.5in and 5.25in discs, plus a few old 3.0in and 8.0in floppy discs.