Comments on: A Dual-Boot Debacle with Windows 7 and XP

By: L3B0

L3B0 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:16:33 +0000

I think that dual booting Win7 and XP is pointless, Windows 7 RTM is as good if not better than XP and if changing over is the problem them work with it. Dual booting should be done with something like Win7 and Ubuntu, or Win7 and Mac OSX >>> Two completely different OS’s :)

Check out this link for more info…. http://hubpages.com/_xu7vv63x88ht/hub/How-to-Dual-and-Triple-Boot-Windows-7-Apple-Mac-OS-X-and-Ubuntu-910

By: Sladioum

Sladioum — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:07:28 +0000

Hi. I just have a question. I had 2 partitions of my drive one having xp 32 and the other having xp 64. i whiped the xp 32 and installed windows 7 without preparing the xp and now i cant boot my xp… any ideas of how to fix it?

By: Dianne Moses

Dianne Moses — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:02:10 +0000

I too have successfully set up an XP/Windows 7 dual boot on a netbook, by booting from the Windows 7 DVD and a custom install on a separate partition. I wonder why it works this way for some and not others.

By: Zack Lee Wright

Zack Lee Wright — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:39:34 +0000

You should not even compare Vista 2.0 (aka Windows 7) with the awesome MacOSX. One is totally secure while the other is …. NOT.

By: lorddirt

lorddirt — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:46:03 +0000

You sure you didn’t do anything wrong while you were multitasking? because that’s what I did with my laptop when I installed win 7 beta. I had XP on 1 partition and I booted the beta ISO from a dvd and installed win 7 on the 2nd partition. XP was still intact.

Then when I got a copy of win 7 RTM, I burned the ISO again onto a DVD and installed using the DVD without booting into XP (or win 7 beta) first. When the win 7 installation fired up, I chose to format the win beta partition and installed win 7 RTM there. Again, XP was still intact afterwards

By: Philip Ferris

Philip Ferris — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 09:25:43 +0000

I can confirm xp speed with Windows 7 look and feel on this Aspire One AOA150 Netbook.

I love the feel and how everything just worked when I installed Built 7100. While I had to forgo the half price sale on Win 7, I will be buying a copy or more next year.

By: Gordon Cahill

Gordon Cahill — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:37:57 +0000

To get the tablrt bits it will need to be premium or better. Even if you install ultimate you can turn stuff off later.

Gordon

By: greg

greg — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:24:18 +0000

Kevin,

I also have a MSDN subscription and was wondering which version of windows 7 would be best for my Toshiba M200 tablet? I know windows 7 is suppose to be faster then Vista, but on a older notebook with 2gb of ram would it make a difference in speed if i installed Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate? Or will they all run at basically the same speed? I’d like to install ultimate, but i really don’t need all those features and if a lesser version will be faster i would rather choose that one.

Thanks.

By: HG

HG — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:15:50 +0000

Kevin, I know this is to early to ask but when you get a chance can you see how much battery life it shows on the Toshiba NB205 with Windows 7. Can’t wait to install Win 7 on my NB205.

By: JP Rowland

JP Rowland — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:45:24 +0000

I’ve been running Windows 7 RC alone on my Lenovo X60 tablet for a while, and that has definitely been my experience: XP performance with Windows 7 look and power. Perhaps even better performance than XP, given that I was able to get rid of a lot of heavy Lenovo pre-installed apps. It definitely “feels” faster and snappier. The new taskbar is perhaps even better than Mac OS X’s Dock.

Win 7 is definitely “What Vista Should Have Been”. Microsoft would sell millions if they used that slogan, but of course they won’t.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:45:07 +0000

Lesson learned, young man. ;)

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:44:39 +0000

No, I definitely installed Win 7 to the 2nd partition. Unfortunately, I ended up with a blank 1st partition, Windows 7 on the second and no boot menu. :(

By: Jake

Jake — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:39:33 +0000

Tut, tut. Let that be a lesson to you old man :)

By: gmazin

gmazin — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:35:45 +0000

Well since you did split it into two equal partitions, maybe you told Windows 7 to install it onto the partition with XP? Because I followed almost everything the way you did it (the difference being I didn’t use gparted) the other day when I was installing Windows 7 to my 900HA and I can dual boot fine.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:21:12 +0000

Here’s what I mean:

You can install the new OS in one of two ways. 1. Boot into your old OS (XP in my case) and then insert the DVD for the new OS. Initiate the setup from within the old OS. 2. Boot directly from the DVD of the new OS. That’s what I did this morning, but I didn’t mean to. I meant to use option 1.

Regardless of that, you have to create a new partition first, i.e.: before starting to install the new OS. Once you have the new partition, the Windows 7 installation process will allow you to install to it. Just choose the “custom” install option and you can choose the partition. In the situation you described, I don’t know of any way to get around that. Once you restored to the primary and recovery partitions, you effectively gave yourself no other partition to install another OS to. Therefore, you’d have to create a new one.

By: gordon

gordon — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:12:44 +0000

Kevin,
Can you explain the:
“Usually, I install the new OS from within the old OS”

Is that an option on the W7 DVD to install to
a particular partition?

My experience: I reinstalled XP from a Compaq
recovery DVD. It removes all current partitions and installs two partitions:
C:(system) and D:(recovery). I could
not figure out how to keep my other
dual boot partition. So I had to reinstall
it after the Compaq recovery install :-(
gordon