Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

Brink said:

Hello KJ.,

This can help show you how to change how long the Windows Boot Manager waits for you to select a OS at boot.

Operating System to Start - Change Display List Time


If you do not have Windows 7 listed and only XP, then you can install only EasyBCD (step 7 Method Two) or EasyBCD 2.0 Beta Builds (preferred) to add Windows 7 the same way to the boot list.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks, Shawn. I added a few seconds to making the choice. I had no problem with both "Previous version" and Windows 7 showing, so I didn't need EasyBCD.

I don't recall if you said to do it this way, but I have the HD with XP as the one and only boot drive, yet I get the dual boot choice of both XP and W7. (I added Win7 to a new HD in a computer already with XP Pro.) And it is in W7 that I edit the Boot Manager. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure that if I set up my Win7 drive as the one and only boot drive, I don't get a choice.

Another little thing that I think I "discovered" during the installation of Win7 to an already existing XP machine is that during the installation there comes a time when Win 7 starts booting from it's HD and not the CD drive. So, I set up the Win 7 HD as the first boot drive and the CD-ROM as the second. When it was ready to use the HD, it was seamless. Maybe that was unnecessary, but when I had the CD-ROM drive as first, it kept going to the starting of the installation causing me to have to re-enter everything.

A little annoyance is that I expected Win 7 to ask me what I want to do about partitions, but it never did. My new HD for the install was a 1TB drive. After the install was finished, I did the shrink thing on this "C Drive", but it would only go down to about 450GB because of sectors that couldn't be moved apparently. I wish I had set up the partitions before starting the install of Win7. I don't really need a 450GB C drive.

Still, your tutorial is priceless, and in my opinion adding Win7 to an XP setup is the simplest.

My plan is to get Win7 up and working right (still having some drivers growing pains, glitchy drops of internet access, scratchy music playback, inability to get more precise about what folder to get files for music, and lockups) and then do away with XP. Not anytime soon, though. My XP setup is nearly flawless. I had to use one of my Norton Internet Security licenses on the Win 7 install, probably because I don't know how to make it work with both ...

for number 6 of method one,
after i installed windows 7 on drive d, ( xp was on drive c ) , there was no such a screen for choosing between OSes. ?!

Brink said:

KJ,

You might see how the free Partition Wizard Home Edition may work for you on resizing the partitions how you like. It is more advanced than Disk Management.

Thank you. Amazing free program!

great, very thanks for 2nd method

Thank you Brink, you very helped me with this tutorial! :)