Windows 7: Ordered new laptop with Win 8 but plan to install Win 7 - partitions?

I've ordered myself a new Acer laptop which will come with Windows 8 64 already installed, however, I also ordered Windows 7 to install as I really don't want to be using Windows 8. My original intention was to format the drive and install Windows 7 instead, but come to think of it, I'd quite like to have both operating systems on the hard drive.

Can I partition the hard drive to allow for the 750GB HDD to be split up into another partition for Windows 8 and if so, how simple should it be? Also, what complications may there be, if any if both Win 7 and Win 8 are installed?

Cheers



Edit: 17/01/2013 - after a long time of trying to find a solution to dual booting, I have not found a working solution, but I hope others do.

Acer Aspire V3-571G

Specs of laptop:

Intel Core i5 3210m
8GB DDR3-1600
GT 630M 1GB
750GB WD Scorpio Blue SATA II

BIOS version was v2.02 when I got it - yesterday updated it to v2.11

Hi,

Try this:

Dual Boot Installation - Windows 8 and Windows 7 or Vista

Regards,
Golden

Have looked into Windows Classic Shell? I've been using it on Windows 7 Pro for a couple of years. Very stable, very good. I just put it on two new Windows 8 laptops that I bought for my daughters.
Welcome to Classic Shell

If its a Win8 PC it likely has Secure Boot which needs to be turned off to install Windows 7: Downgrade Windows 8 to Windows 7.

Not sure if Win8 will then work but you can reinstall it if not.

Good suggestion Greg. This may also be useful:
Secure Boot - Enable or Disable in UEFI

I've bookmarked all of those links - thank you for your help guys - I'll post back in a few days when I receive the laptop and get to work on getting it running as a like, or ask for help if I can't

For dual boot.

Follow Step one to five in this tutorial:
Downgrade Windows 8 to Windows 7
Than follow this tutorial: (installing in uEFI mode.)
Dual Boot Installation - Windows 8 and Windows 7 or Vista

So can I just assume that everything done in the second tutorial is exactly the same from within Windows 8?

1. Disable secure boot
2. Open Windows 8 and create another partition for Windows 7
3. Restart and install Windows 7 on the new partition
4. Once Windows 7 is setup, restart again and change the boot defaults.

Is this pretty much correct?

Yes.

Install in uEFI mode.

To what?

[QUOTE=theog;2242345]Win 7