Dual Booting 32bit and 64bit is it possible?

[Llanfear]

Hi
I have a Dell Inspiron 1720 with Windows 7 32 bit Premium installed.
can someone instruct me how to now add 64bit Ultimate as a dual boot, I have just bought win7 ultimate.
Thanks for your time

 

[PooMan UK]

Hi and welcome to the forums.
Excuse me for my ignorance but why would you want or need the ability to dual boot the same OS with just 32/64 bit being the difference. Surely the disc space saved alone by installing only 1 version would be of more value and a lot less hassle ??
Soz I'm just curious

 

[Llanfear]

I want to try some of my programs with 64bit before I commit to one or the other.

 

[gregrocker]

Shrink your existing Windows to make enough space for a 64 bit trial partition, or use a second HD.

Boot the 64 bit DVD, select Custom install, then use Drive Tools to create partition and format before installing to new partition.

You can choose not to input Product Key at install and uncheck Automatically Activate to try 64 bit for 30 days before deciding to keep it, or activate it now since you can always delete it and use 32 bit if you want.

 

[Llanfear]

Thanks for the good advice here.
I have got the partition ready but the windows disk won't boot from my dvd drive.
I forgot to mention earlier that I had a dual boot with 32 bit Premium and 32 bit Ultimate, I removed the 32 bit install by formating the partition it was installed on and deleting the menu entry in boot menu in msconfig.

 

[gregrocker]

Do you have the latest BIOS version update? Check your computer or mobo model Support Downloads page to check for newer to install from Windows.

Are you booting the DVD correctly? Boot from CD - How to Boot your Computer from a Bootable CD or DVD - Boot to CD

Try removing all but 2gb of memory for install. Test your memory using Windows Memory Diagnostics for at least 2 passes.

Did you successfully boot to install your existing 32 bit OS? What is the exact fail point while booting DVD?