Questions about Dual booting W10 for PC's

[FAHMI BASSEM]

i'm planning to dual boot windows 10 on my VAIO which runs 8.1, but before doing this I want to know a few things (it's my only laptop!):

1- will my files be shared with w10, photos, music, win32 apps, etc?
2- will it affect the performance of my VAIO if I booted 8.1?
3- do I have to make a full backup (the one WC mentioned in their article)?
+ the backup is for files and the OS?
4- does any of you did this? and do you encourage me?

thanks !!

 

[vp710]

1. if they're located on your Win 8.1 partition, no they won't.
2. not sure I understand the question. If you dual boot Win 10 and 8.1, there should be no performance decrease unless your hard drive's storage space is close to full.
3. you definitely should backup anything you want to keep.
4. I have not done this on a laptop or a computer with only one physical drive. Honestly, the best way to dual boot is to install the different OS's on separate hard drives. There's just too much that can go wrong when dual booting on the same drive.

 

[nTrud3r]

1. Sort of. You can view and open files on either partition on either OS. but they're not really shared with oneanother
2. I highly doubt it.
3. If you want to be safe. You might accidentaly select the wrong partition when installing
4. I'm quite experienced with dual-booting. It's actually an easy process one you get your head around the BIOS and partitioning jargon

 

[sharpycl]

I've dual booted Win10 on a Win8.1 laptop last week and it worked flawlessly. I was able to shrink the volume and install it on a second partition on the same hard drive. So it is possible.

Everything the posters above said is true. One thing I would stress to you is to make a backup of your system if you can just in case things go wrong. I am also very experienced at dual booting and know things can go wrong if you're not careful.

 

[noersetiawan]

1. Application won't be shared, for file, it's sort of. If they are located on your W8.1 partition, they won't show up on your W10 default folder (Documents, Pictures, Music folder, etc), but you CAN still access them thru File Explorer. You can also choose to re-locate your W10 default folder to your W8.1 default folder. I did this, and now I see the same files whenever I go to, say, Documents folder, both in W10 and W8.1
2. Nope, not at all. Dual-booting to disk means completely separate OS.
3. I didn't, but whether you should make it or not is up to you. I suggest doing it if its your 1st time doing this just to make it fool-proof.
4. Yes. Sure, if it's the first time you do dual-booting, it will give you new knowledge, may be you'll be curious to try another OS after your succesful attempt.

ADVICE: Rename your partition, i.e. name your W8.1 C drive as "Windows 8.1", your D drive as "Data" and take note of their size from W8.1. On W10 installation, you'll choose which partition W10 will be written to, having name will minimize the risk of selecting the wrong partition. Always double check, if you're wrong your data may not recoverable or need professional help to recover it.

 

[lamdfer]

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