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Can I install Windows 7 alongside Vista without screwing it up?

alexp999

alexp999

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Okay, I want to give Windows 7 a try, but I want to see what its really capable of as opposed to just seeing the feaures in a VM. I have managed to shrink my main volume by 100gb, leaving that as unallocated space. I'm wondering if it would be possible, to install Windows 7 on this second partition and have a dual boot, without it screwing up my Vista install as I have just got it how I like it. I then want to be able to simply format the partition after I've tried it for a bit and extend my main volume back as if nothing had changed.
Is this possible? Anyone tried anything like this?

:toast:
 
One friend of mine has 7 alongside XP, although 7 is on a different disk, not partition :).
 
Dark_Webster said:
One friend of mine has 7 alongside XP, although 7 is on a different disk, not partition :).
Click to expand...

Has it added a dual boot, or do they just choose a different drive to boot off in the bios?
 
alexp999 said:
Has it added a dual boot, or do they just choose a different drive to boot off in the bios?
Click to expand...

He started 7 installation from XP and chosen the other drive, in this case, D:. Now it has a Dual-Boot :D.
 
Dark_Webster said:
He started 7 installation from XP and chosen the other drive, in this case, D:. Now it has a Dual-Boot :D.
Click to expand...

Okay, so if I started 7 install from Vista but choose the other partition, then it would add a dual boot screen.
If after Ive tried it out and wanted to get rid of it, do you reckon it woul be simple enough just to go into vista, delete the partition then use something like bcdedit, to get the dual boot back to just Vista?
Does Windows 7 use the same boot method as Vista?

Main thing thats holding me back atm, is being able to get rid if windows 7 and just get Vista back as normal
 
alexp999 said:
Okay, so if I started 7 install from Vista but choose the other partition, then it would add a dual boot screen.
If after Ive tried it out and wanted to get rid of it, do you reckon it woul be simple enough just to go into vista, delete the partition then use something like bcdedit, to get the dual boot back to just Vista?
Does Windows 7 use the same boot method as Vista?

Main thing thats holding me back atm, is being able to get rid if windows 7 and just get Vista back as normal
Click to expand...

7's Dual-boot menu stays in main partition, in your case, Vista's partition.

In my friends computer, we turned off the 7 disk, started up the computer and 7's boot menu stayed :(.

But if you delete the partition and fix your boot, it won't detect other OS and eliminate that menu :).
 
It might even blow up!

Seriously if anything goes wrong you can always fix the boot manager by using the Vista DVD and the boot manager thingie described on MS pages.
 
to get rid of the 7 install go into vista, format the drive and then use the vista partition manager to fill it up.

not sure about installing it in the first place though sorry.
 
Cool, I'm not worried about installing it, thats not a prob, it was just getting rid of it, lol.
I'll give it a go, its not like I have any really improtant data on my HDD, it just takes ages to install nearly 100GB worth of games :rolleyes:
 
Yes you can, but i don't know how.
I watched that in a computer a friend of mine has.
 
I have done that on my laptop. No problems, but I havent tried removing it though, my laptop died a few days ago due to unrelated reasons w/o giving me a chance to try to uninstall it. I am pretty sure it is easy to remove it, although once you try win 7 it is not easy to get back to vista :rolleyes:
 
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