Windows 10: Vista/Neon/Win7 and Win10 experiment.

My main system, as some may already know, has a Win7/Win10 dual boot on seperate drives which work well together after resolving some minor hiccups....

I have an old test rig (Asus P5Q Deluxe, 4gb RAM....) that I have used to install Vista x64 ( absolute nightmare, but, I eventually managed to get it to SP2 ) and KDE Neon x64 partitioned on one ssd. I would like to see Vista and Neon on my main computer so I have older Windows versions and Linux to play with.

I really don't want to go through the Vista install again and I don't want GRUB to mess up my boot up. Is it possible to put the SSD in my main computer and set up Win10 boot loader to see Vista and Neon.

This is just tinkering and playing, but it woud be good to see how these work on the main computer......

Any problems I should be aware of before I start?

All the best



:)

 

Use old win7-10 hdd to upgrade vista pc?


Hello everyone and thank you for making this forum available.
I appreciate your willingness and generosity to share your knowledge and experience.

I am seeking advice and suggestions on upgrading a Vista PC from a hard drive that
came out of my Win7-Win10 laptop.
(The laptop mobo-gpu burned up)

I want to upgrade the Vista PC to Win7-Win10 because apps I use run better on Win7-Win10.
Also, MS will support Win7-Win10 longer into the future than Vista.
****************
The Vista PC is a Gateway DX4710-09
(about 5 years old, works great)
Vista Home Prem x64 SP2
586 gig hdd with 435 gig free
6 gig ram
Win7 Update Advisor says OK to upgrade.
*****************
The Win7-Win10 laptop HDD came from a Gateway NV7310u
(about 4 years old, the hdd works great, the laptop mobo-gpu burned out)
Win7 Home Prem x64 successfully upgraded to Win10 via the free upgrade
250 gig hdd with 125 gig free
******************
I made a DVD of Win7 sp1 x17-58997.iso
******************
I have a Sabrent USB-DSC9 hard drive adapter
******************

Thanks again for your help!

 

homegroup win10 not recognize printer & scanner on win7 computer

Thank you so much for the quick response to my problem.

my devices I am trying to access on the win7 computer are:

Printer: Stylus Photo R200

Scanner: Perfection 4180

I had these originally on my computer B4 win10 install. After the install they did not work. That is why I connected to my other win7 computer. The win7 is within my Homegroup and when I access thru win10 I get access to docs, picts, videos, etc but not
the above devices. Reversing this, accessing my win10 computer from the win7, I get the icon my Epson Workforce 310 printer which I set up on the win7 computer for printing as well as the above devices.

Went to Epson website on the win7 comp & found the recommended driver for win7. Did the same on the win10 comp to find drivers for win10. (Did not update these drivers yet.) Apparently they have 2 different drivers dependent on WIN version. Both drivers
are up to date.

Is it possible the drivers are not compatible and this accounts for these devices not showing up on the win10 machine? Don't know if win10 driver will work on win7. I may try to set these up on win10 machine. If work can upgrade win7 to win10.

I tried steps 1 & 2. Step 3, I know I have devices set to show on the network.

Any other suggestions/comments??

 

Dual Boot Win7 & Win10

Here are my steps for dual booting:

• Create a system image - store it on an external drive
  
  
• Disconnect from the Internet and stay disconnected - part of the install asks about connecting
  - do NOT connect just yet.
  
  
• Create the space for the 2nd OS.
  This is tricky - drives initialized as MBR can only have 4 partitions (an extended partition allows for more),
  many OEMs create 4 primary parts and you have to adjust their disk schema.
  
  Post a Disk Management screen shotClose the left and right panes
  The columns should also be stretched to clearly show the values, most important is the Status column
  If you have many drives, you might have to adjust the middle separator and drag the bottom edge of the window down to show the maximum information.
  Then in the View menu, pick Top and change it to disk list - no need to post a pic - just note the initialized format (MBR | GPT) and post the information.
  
• Unless the 2nd OS will be used on a daily basis, keep the space to a minimum.
  Win10 + pgms on my machine takes up about 15 GB.
  I don't use Win10TP as my main OS - that's Win8.1, so data isn't a concern.
  30 - 50 GB is more than sufficient.
  
  
• Once the space is available - take your time here - there are traps with MBR disks.
  If your disk is initialized GPT, no problem - easy! But... MBR - make sure you know what you're doing.
  Just free up enough unallocated space,
  -> do not create a partition and do not format the space.
  
  
• When you're ready to install Win10, use a disc to avoid EFI issues.
  
  1. Boot to the Win10 install disc (see your machine documentation on accessing the Boot Order menu at startup)
     
     +editA
     These steps are probably NOT necessary, it was an afterthought when I installed Win10 the 3rd time as a dual boot to Vista. That is when I noticed the Win10 page file on my Vista boot drive - which caused Vista a bit of a problem (temporary page file created - yada, yada, yada) - I recreated the Win10 page file on it's own partition and then reallocated the Vista page file for good measure.
     
     At the first Win10 install screen, Press Shift+F10
     Then enter these commands in the Console window
     
     ^^ denotes comment, not a command
     Launch Diskpart
     lis vol
     
     ^^ remove the drive letters from all drives
     ^^ it's easier if you disconnect external drives that aren't needed for this exercise.
     
     sel vol #
     remove letter=
     ^^ specify the letter that was shown for that volume in the lis vol command
     ^^ repeat this (select volume, remove letter=) until there are no volumes with letters shown in lis vol
     lis vol
     exit
     close the Command prompt with the X in the upper right hand corner
     
     You should be back in the Win10 install now.-editA
     
     
  2. Answer the questions as if you were doing a clean installation (language, region, etc)
     
     
  3. Choose a custom install
     When it asks you where you want to install, choose the unallocated space
     Let the install complete, the rest should be easy.

+editB
When Win10 boots up, you shouldn't see any other drives - this is good.
Configure the volumes for each OS - I suggest that you keep the two OSes separate, only expose the volumes you need to for each OS. Your Win7 should see everything except the Win10 volumes. Your Win10 should only see volumes you'll use in testing (i.e. what ever you create on the currently new and blank SSD).
If you need data from your existing Win7 install, it's probably better to copy what you need than to expose your good data to Tech Preview code.
-editB

When Win7 boots up, you will see the Win10 drive - remove the letter from that drive. Keep your system separate.

If at any step above you need some help, please ask ... you might have to wait, please wait. The hardest thing to do is wait and the easiest thing to do is "ooops, but I thought you meant...."

I think I remembered all of the steps I took - but... I'm human too *Wink