Dual Booting Release Candidate and Retail Version

jsquareg · 02 Oct 2009

Here is my current dual boot setup:

Win XP on Partition 1 (Primary)
Release candidate on Partition 2 (Primary)
Data on Partition 3 (Logical)
Scratch on Partition 4 (logical)

An image of my complete HD and an 'old machine' Easy Transfer file of RC exist out on an external HD.

I have been using the Release Candidate since July for my daily work and have seldom if ever booted XP after getting the RC setup to my liking.

When the Retail version of Home Premium comes out I would like to do a clean install of it onto Partition 1 (XP) and be able to dual boot between the RC and the Retail Version until I get the Retail version set up the way I want it to be. Is this possible? I think Easy BCD might do it for me. If not, it is no big deal but it sure would be convenient.

Thank you.

Tews · 02 Oct 2009

The RC will time bomb out on 3/10 ... why would you want to hang onto it anyway??

jsquareg · 02 Oct 2009

Tews said:

The RC will time bomb out on 3/10 ... why would you want to hang onto it anyway??

Thank you.

Perhaps I wasn't clear about my reason for hanging on to it. I just want it around so that I can use it for daily work until I get the Retail version completely set up. Once that is done I will get rid of the RC.

Jonathan_King · 02 Oct 2009

Yes, it will be no problem to install 2 versions of Windows 7. Simply installing over the XP partition should do the trick. If anything goes wrong, you can always repair your installation.

jsquareg · 02 Oct 2009

Jonathan King said:

Yes, it will be no problem to install 2 versions of Windows 7. Simply installing over the XP partition should do the trick. If anything goes wrong, you can always repair your installation.

Thank you very much.

I am glad to hear that. I assume removing the RC will simply be a matter of deleting the partition via gparted or the Release version itself and then using easybcd to remove the boot entry. Or, maybe the other way around.

Thanks again.