Windows 7 - Dual Boot Windows 7 and Windows 7?

I want to dual boot Windows 7 (x2) on the same machine.

Does anyone know of a good tutorial on this?

And, how can I make it so that each are completely private (i.e. can't access or see files from the other OS).

Thanks

Hello dualbootguy,

Welcome to Seven Forums.

Install the dual boot same as if one was Vista. Info here if needed: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and Vista

To hide one os from the other, open disk manager in each os and remove the drive letter for the other os.

Hope this helps.

Gary

I'm curious as to why one would want to do this. Isn't that what Users are for?

One thing I liked about having a dual boot is that if my main OS broke, I could boot into the other OS in order to save my stuff before reinstalling. It could also be used to test new software or settings before installing on your production OS. If it is for testing purposes, a VM will work also although I'm not sure that you can activate it in the VM with the same key. I have a technet subscription, so this is not a problem here.

Edit:Looks like activating in a VM with the same key is a problem. windows 7 partition as Dual Boot and VM

May be a Win 7 32bit & win 7 64bit Dual Boot.

My computer has 600 GB and Vista is installed right now.

My plan is to allocate 200 GB to the main drive (the one that automatically starts up when I boot up my computer)

And allocate the remaining 400 GB to the separate drive (the one that I would have to manually select when I boot up my computer)

If I am correct, the steps to take are:

1) Format my existing Vista OS using this guide.
2) Once Seven is installed, create the new partition and allocate space to both
3) Install the new copy of Seven.

But wouldn't doing this make my 400 gb drive load automatically when the computer starts up (something I don't want) :
Thanks

well yes it would, but thats easily fixed with bcdedit or Easy BCD

And the cost of two licecses.

Yes, and that's why dual booting the same OS twice on one computer serves no purpose, and makes little to no sense at all.
That's what repair discs and/or BartPE, UBCD, etc are all for. It saves time, and allows you to access and copy off all of your data, if needed.
You couldn't do this either way because either option would count as another installation, requiring a separate license. The difference is, a VM can be restored in a matter of minutes, if you happen to bork the OS, leaving your host system untouched. You also can run several different OSes, without messing with bootloaders. For 99.9% of the situations, VM technology has rendered dual-booting as a dead, obsolete method.

How do I set up two user accounts so that neither are able to see or access the other user's files? It's a shared computer and both want their own.