Xp win 7 dual boot

[fatherhudson]

alright so i need to install windows 7 so i can play just cause 2 but i dont want to get rid of xp. i need help on resizing the partition that xp's using right now and then installing win 7 on the rest, preferably so that i can easily boot into either. wat do?

 

[Herr_Koos]

Here's a few simple steps that should get you sorted.

1) Download and burn GParted. It's a free disk partitioning tool.
2) Boot from the Gparted disc and use it to resize your XP partition (The interface is reasonably simple to learn, so just read carefully).
3) Create a new partition in the resulting free space, and format it to NTFS.
4) Restart the PC (you will be prompted to remove the GParted disc).
5) Boot from the Windows 7 disc and install normally to the new partition.

And voila! You should now have a fully functioning dual-boot system. Check back here if you have questions.

 

[fatherhudson]

Do i need to format it to ntfs with gparted or can i just leave it as unallocated space and get 7 to format it?

edit: Any idea how long it should take to resize the partition? It's been resizing for more than 15 min now and i can't tell if it's frozen or something (1tb harddrive with ~225gb of data resizing to 250gb partition)

 

[Herr_Koos]

Give it some time, it will take a while to resize a big drive. I suppose you could let Windows format the new partition, no worries.

 

[fatherhudson]

finally finished resizing!

So you're say that windows 7 will set up some sort of dual boot loader automatically for me? wow windows is getting better and better . . . i've heard rumors about not even needing drivers for my wireless card or audio with Win 7 . . . way to go microsoft, you finally figured something out.

 

[Herr_Koos]

Windows 7 does indeed have a more advanced boot loader, and will automatically set up dual boot when it detects the older version of Windows. Just don't try and install XP after 7; that will cause a bit of havoc.

On the subject of drivers, you still need them, but Windows 7 has much better out-of-the-box support for hardware, and is very good at finding drivers by itself.

 

[fatherhudson]

Best answer selected by fatherhudson.

 

[Herr_Koos]

So all good then?