Dual Booting In Windows 7 Now Made Easy
Dual booting is a fantastic way to have your cake and eat it too. Instead of having just one operating system you can have multiple, all neatly packed with goodies and compartmentalized on their respective partitions. A popular dual boot configuration is a Windows and Linux box. Since Apple switched to Intel chips, users are even setting up Windows/OSX systems. With Windows 7 just new on the horizon and about to be released to the masses, computer enthusiasts with beta versions of Windows 7 are dual booting with XP or Vista. Anyone can do it, as it's not a complicated process if you're willing to get your hands a little dirty. Read the following article to find out how to create a Windows 7 dual boot system.
New Vista Partition
First of all, if you only have the beta ISO file of Windows 7, you'll need to burn that ISO to a blank DVD disc. If you already have a copy of Windows 7 on disc then you're set to go. Now, you'll need to create a living space for Windows 7 to reside on your hard drive. This process is known as creating a partition. Vista has built-in tools for resizing and making partitions, but alas, XP comes with no such program. So, let's take a look at a 3rd party alternative tool for XP that will do the job just as nicely.
A caution: Remember to back up all your important files before you are going to creat out partitions. It's better to be on the safe side when y0u're tweaking out your hard drive. Inside Vista, go to Start >> Run and type >> “diskmgmt.msc” and hit enter. This stock tool will display various statistics pertaining to your hard drives. Right click the Disk 0 partition and choose the “Shrink Volume” option. You'll then see your drive capacity data. Windows 7 requires at least 16 gigabytes of space to reside on, so enter in a value equal or greater than this and select “Shrink”.
Before assigning a new drive letter to your new partition, give your optical drives a letter one higher than what they have now. This way your new partition can have the next letter that follows your first partition. This isn't required but it keeps things nice, neat and organized.
Right click your new empty partition and choose “New Simple Volume”. Doing so will pop up a wizard dialog box. Tell the wizard to fill up the entire size of the space you have just allocated. Select Quick Format and use NTFS—NT file system. Name the volume label anything you desire.
New XP Partition
XP doesn't come with a separate partition utility so you must resort to a 3rd party program. Get a copy of the free program GParted and burn the ISO file to disc. GParted is small enough to fit on a CD-R. Remember those?
Place the GParted CD into your optical drive and reboot. On the GParted interface right click on the partition you want to resize and choose the Resize/Move context menu option. Right click the space you just created and choose “New”. A window asking you for the amount of free space will materialize. Enter in zeros for both the preceding and proceeding empty space. Be sure to create it as a Primary Partition, formatting it using the NTFS file system.
Windows 7 Installation
Now it's time to install Windows 7, finalizing the dual boot creation process. Reboot your PC with the Windows 7 setup disc in your drive and follow the Windows 7 wizard's directions. Make absolutely sure that you select Advanced Install or else you're apt to install Windows 7 onto the wrong partition, perhaps wiping out all of your data. So, again, make sure you back up everything first! After the installation has concluded, reboot, and select the operating system you'd like to load.
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