Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and Vista

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP DEAR FRIEND.
YOUR EXPLANATION WAS HELP FULL.
ERNESTO

i installed win 7 on primary HD

and i disconnected primary HD and installed vista on Secondary HD

now i connected Primary HD bbut now boot is going to vista only how to get win 7 too!!!

Hi raj,

Because you are likely to be booting into 7 most, I suggest you go into bios and set the 7 HD as the first HD in bios boot order.

If you prefer, you can simply swap the order the SATA cables are connected to the motherboard.

Then you can add Vista to the 7 boot menu with startup repair, bcdedit, or Easybcd.

Howard Kaikow said:

Mike B said:

Vista will have all it's programs, applications and shortcuts installed on C.

When you boot to Win 7 and install any programs, applications and shortcuts they will be on C. Install Win 7 from a booted DVD on the G drive, and when you boot to 7, it will be C. It's not like you will be running programs on the G drive when you are booted to Vista.

I've been running multiboot since at least Windows 95.

I some cases a prog can be installed in 1 OS, and run from other OS.
Or, there may be files that one needs to share amongst OS.

Another, better, approach is have another parttion in which shared files/programs can be installed, rather than plopping then on the C drive for an OS.

I use both approaches.

Win 7 seems to want to hide the C drive for other OS.
This forces me to use the better, approach of putting common files in a separate partition.

For some programs, this may be easy, e.g., Firefox an Thunderbird. For others, it might be difficult to have thg prog and related files in separate partitions.

I guess that I'll yell Uncle! and use the approach of creating a separate programs partition, as well as a separate data partition, or have separate folders in a separate partition.

More importantly, as I look at my calendar, I note that we are now in 2009, with 2010 not far away.

Isn't it about time that MSFT dropped all this partition/drive letter nonesense, and just used mount points?

Re: the program files on a separate partition. I have installed programs in Vista to a separate D: drive, where I also have files.

If I install upgrade or clean/custom Windows 7 (new partition on C: or on separate D: drive?), is there a way to get the programs to run in both Vista and Windows 7? Would I just reinstall from each O.S. and point to the separate D: for programs and files? They would then keep overwriting themselves. Wouldn't that cause problems?

If anyone has got this to work, please let me know before I install 7. Thanks.

I intend to install Win7 HP 64 bit on a new additional HDD which would be my 'D' drive with the already existing 'C' drive containing VistaHP 32 bit.

Once Win7 and all programs are installed and properly running on 'D', will I be able to change 'C' to drive letter 'E', then change 'D' to drive letter 'C' and then reformat 'F' to just leave me with Win7 on 'C' as the sole OS

Thanks in advance
Pedro38

Hi Pedro,

The way to do that is to disconnect the HD containing Vista.

Have only the new HD connected. Install 7 onto it.

Make sure the 7 HD is first in Bios HD boot order.

Reattach the Vista HD.

Add an entry for Vista to the 7 boot menu by installing Easybcd on 7, or by using bcdedit.

What I hate about 7 is the Access Denied on some folders. Is there any way around that? As administrator, I want to look at all my folders.