I am sure by now, that everyone has heard about XP Mode in Windows 7. If not then read this post. Anyway, the one thing XP mode is not good for, is gaming. This is primarily due to the fact that you are running an entire VM in the background (transparent to you) and viewing the application in a RDP window. If you have ever tried to do anything that is graphic intensive over RDP then you know that the performance is horrible. That is the reason that I decided to dual boot my machine with Windows 7 and XP.
Dual booting can be a scary thing. I am warning you up front that configuring a dual boot system can be a long and painful process. Playing around with your boot loader is a quick way to hose up your entire machine. Therefore, if you are not comfortable with the risk then stop reading this article now.
OK, so you are still reading this post, then you are either brave or slightly insane. In any case, here are the instructions:
- Start by installing Windows 7 on your desktop.
- When Windows 7 is finished you can launch Disk Management. Disk Management is a built-in utility that can shrinking and expanding partitions and it does not require any 3rd party utilities. To manage your partitions, open Control Panel and type "partitions" or "hard disk" in the search bar on the right corner and you can see the link "Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions" under administrative tools. Alternatively you can use a third party tool like the gparted Live CD if you are more familiar with it.
- To shrink a volume, right click on the desired volume and select the Shrink Volume option. This will open up a window and you will need to specify the amount of space to shrink in MB. For my install I entered a value of 30,000 MB or 30 GB. Hit the Shrink button to start the process.
- You should now have two partitions on your disk. Now we can reboot the machine and start the XP install.
- Once you finish installing XP you will notice that you will no longer be able to boot into Windows 7. Don't Panic. You just need to restore the bootloader. In order to simplify this task you will need to download EasyBCD. Easy BCD will allow you to restore your Windows 7 boot entry and also add the XP boot entry as well. However, EasyBCD requires .NET framework 2.0 so you may need to install that first if you do not have it on your XP machine.
- After, you launch EasyBCD go to the Add/Remove Entries tab and add a new entry for the XP Install. Make sure the type is Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3. Select the drive and click
Add Entry, followed by Save.
If you installed both operating systems on the same disk but in different partitions then leave the drive letter at C:. This threw me off the first time I did it but luckily I was just able to go right back into Windows XP and fix the mistake. Apparently the dialog is asking where the boot loader is installed and not where the OS is installed.
- Finally, go to the Manage Bootloader tab and select the option to Reinstall the Vista Bootloader, click Write MBR and restart the system.
- If you followed the steps correctly you should be dual booting!
BTW...the steps for dual booting Windows 7 and XP are the same for Windows Vista and XP.
References:
APC Magazine - How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first)
TechSpot - Dual Boot Windows 7 with XP/Vista in three easy steps
