Windows 10: how can I dual boot win10 with win7

simply, will have legal activated copies of each on the same PC in different drives.
Right now, I have win 10, but I will have win7 on another drive.

:)

 

win10 home auto powers on by it's self

So this did fix the booting into win10 first issue, i can now boot into win10 or win7 from the BCD boot menu and the win10 boot menu doesn't interfere or cause a dual boot to get back into win7.

 

How to Dual Boot Windows 10 with Other Versions of Windows, macOS and Linux

Back in the day I updated to Win10 by adding another SSD into my machine and created a dual boot when I "upgraded" from Win7. The other day my Win10 installation when belly up and I had to do a reinstall which has wiped out my dual boot. How do I tell Win10
that my D:\ is my Win7 installation and crate a dual boot?

 

Here's what i would do:

• Disconnect the drive with Windows10.
• Install Win 7 to the other drive. This will create the neccessary partitions to boot Windows 7 by itself.
• Reconnect the drive containing Windows 10 and boot up.
• Note that the C: drive of Windows 7 is now changed to another letter. For example E: Drive
• Open Admin command prompt and type: bcdboot E:\Windows
• Reboot. You'll have a dual boot menu to boot from.

NOTE: You could also install Win 7 without disconnecting Windows 10 but IMO, this is cleaner to have Win 7 with its own boot manager in case you want to separate 7 & 10 and boot by themself.

 

Hi,
If you have room on the front of your case install one of these to make live easier
They have a 3.5 and 2.5 hdd version
I use the 2.5 for hdd's and of course ssd's
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

*Ditto

Do it exactly how Topgun described. Keeping both installs separate is the BEST way to do it.

 

Not sure if I need to start my own thread, but I have a related question. I managed to install Windows 7 and get it to dual boot with my already installed Windows 10. However, since I installed 7 after 10, I now get the legacy boot menu (black, DOS-style). I'd prefer the metro GUI boot menu (the blue one). Does anyone know how I can change to that boot loader?

 

In Windows 10, open command prompt (admin) or powershell (admin) and run:

bcdboot C:\Windows

 

Thank you! So simple and elegant.

But now it's showing 5 different boot options: Win 10, CD/DVD drive, Harddrive, USB, and Win 7. I'm not sure why all the other options are listed. I'd prefer if Win 10 and 7 were the only options. Do you mind telling me what's the safest way to remove the unwanted options?

 

See if EasyBCD will work.

EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies

 

Run msconfig, select boot tab, delete unwanted entries. I also click make entries permanent as that removes old entries forever.

 

Very strange that those entries would be in msconfig, maybe the command Navy gave could has something to do with that ?

Wanted to bring that up, but thought, how could those entries get there *Huh

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried, but it only shows entries for Win 10 and 7. Same when I go to the Boot tab of msconfig.

 

in command prompt (admin) run:

bcdedit

Are the mystery entries listed in the results? If they are then run:

bcdedit /delete {guid}

{guid} will be the actual guid of the entry you want to delete. You can cut and paste the guid's.

 

Once again, thank you. That worked perfectly.
Yep, they were listed. It's what I thought was the correct method, but just needed to hear it from someone who knows better than me. I noticed the entries when I ran bcdedit a few days back, but thought nothing of them because they weren't showing up on boot. Glad to finally have that resolved. Thanks again.