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

When you install Windows 7 after Windows 8, Windows 7 will boot first.

uEFI is a very new thing to me - I've never come across it before - is uEFI 100% required or just more beneficial to the user?

It's pretty new to us as well and challenges many of the install and boot fixes we helped pioneer here for Win7.

So far some have chosen to successfully Bypass UEFI to Install WIn7 but it's not at all clear this is a best practice and we are always trying to assure that is what's being recommended. However we've had no complaints from those who did.

Ray do you know for sure on a Windows 8 PC that after turning off Secure Boot to install Win7 in a Dual Boot Win8 will still run? I thought Secure Boot was too secure to do that.

Two HDD dual boot,



One HDD dual boot.



No problems with Windows 8 booting dual boot.


No need to by-uEFI, you can install Win XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 & Linux.

HDD three is Win XP.

theog said:

One HDD dual boot.



No problems with Windows 8 booting dual boot.


No need to by-uEFI, you can install Win XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 & Linux.

HDD three is Win XP.

The laptop I ordered has one 750GB (so 696.5GiB as shown in Windows?) HDD so I suppose this is what I will be following. As the the partition sizes - I'm a little confused - is this because of uEFI? Approx 100GB per OS? Then a data partition? Then another 2 including a recovery partition? I'm confused. Please enlighten me :)

I'm only recommended Bypass UEFI to Install WIn7 for those who are seriously stuck trying to install to UEFI, a growing backlog. These need more intensive UEFI-experienced help.

jayrap said:

theog said:

One HDD dual boot.



No problems with Windows 8 booting dual boot.


No need to by-uEFI, you can install Win XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 & Linux.

HDD three is Win XP.

The laptop I ordered has one 750GB (so 696.5GiB as shown in Windows?) HDD so I suppose this is what I will be following. As the the partition sizes - I'm a little confused - is this because of uEFI? Approx 100GB per OS? Then a data partition? Then another 2 including a recovery partition? I'm confused. Please enlighten me :)

Your partitioning would be like my A setup.

gregrocker said:

I'm only recommended Bypass UEFI to Install WIn7 for those who are seriously stuck trying to install to UEFI, a growing backlog. These need more intensive UEFI-experienced help.

No backlog with legal installs.

theog said:

jayrap said:

theog said:

One HDD dual boot.



No problems with Windows 8 booting dual boot.


No need to by-uEFI, you can install Win XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 & Linux.

HDD three is Win XP.

The laptop I ordered has one 750GB (so 696.5GiB as shown in Windows?) HDD so I suppose this is what I will be following. As the the partition sizes - I'm a little confused - is this because of uEFI? Approx 100GB per OS? Then a data partition? Then another 2 including a recovery partition? I'm confused. Please enlighten me :)

Your partitioning would be like my A setup.

So let's imagine we're dealing with GB rather than GiB here, and say the capacity is 750GB I want to give 500GB to the Windows 7 partition, leaving the Windows 8 partition with 250GB or less (not sure if there will be a pre-built recovery partition or anything as I'm not used to pre-build computers - I built my own) - this is also my second laptop but I gave the laptop to my sister a while ago but didn't have to mess around with anything. Can my disk be split like this in uEFI?

750GB total
------------
500GB Win 7
250GB Win 8

And I'm assuming it's going to be more complicated than that because of the whole uEFI thing. Could you correct my... err... thing?

Your partitioning will be smaller than 500 & 250.
Could work out the size better with a screenshot of Disk management.