Windows 10: Dual or Triple Boot XP/7/10 recommendations

Is it a complicated process to use EasyBCD? I don't want to make my system unbootable. Do you do it from a Thumb-drive or Optical media?

 

EasyBCD is installed in Primary OS (disk it boots from).

 

Do you install it before adding the 2nd or 3rd OS?

 

At any time, it doesn't just automatically make Boot Menu, you have to show him where other OSs are and make few other choices to customize boot menu, like for time to be displayed etc.

 

That's a primary reason why you should be virtualizing, instead of multi-booting.

 

It isn't complicated and your firmware will scout around to find a boot manager.

You can (if you want) put this on a USB stick. There is a standard way it will look (boot order so Hard Drive, CD, USB) and then after that look in all partitions for a FAT directory containing /EFI/Something. Your Firmware may demand Something has a specific name like EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi but it may not - it depends who made your Motherboard Firmware. There are some standards here but most people ignore them so if you are replacing the boot manager you may have to guess.

Your boot manager will then scout around to find boot loader(s) (again looking for all connected drives and give you a choice.

It is pretty much impossible to make your system unbootable - it just might not work until you get the name right.

 

@CountMike was this program iReboot? It's also part of Easybcd *Wink

Neosmart - iReboot/

@blcksmth I find all those options equally appropriate. Done them all (installing on a single drive present, instaling multiple OSes on a same drive, different partitions etc) Also, for beginner, Tools like Macrium reflect are essential. Not only it will give you a system image that you can revert to, if anything goes wrong, its booting environment is also a great boot repair utility.