What's the best way to Dual-Boot Windows 10?

[Wayne Singh]

those that are struggling with the powershell script for a VHD might find this easier. Its written for windows 7/8 dual boot but the concept should be the same.
zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-to-use-a-vhd-to-dual-boot-windows-8-on-a-windows-7-pc/4847
(sorry cant post links at the moment so just remove spaces :unhappy: )

 

[wpfanboy17]

Found a useful article to create partitions and dual boot windows.

How to Dual Boot Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 | PCMag.com

 

[kingbobyjr]

Found a useful article to create partitions and dual boot windows.

How to Dual Boot Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 | PCMag.com

That sounds like what I'm going to do but what if I decide to NOT dual boot anymore. Can I eventually extend the C: back into the space that was partitioned for the dual boot?

 

[AndyD33]

Thanks for the vhd guide! Going to do that on my laptop.

On my desktop my win7 hdd is going to transform into my win10 one. (dual booting win8/win7 on separate hdds right now)

 

[odoggyfresh]

I have put Windows 10 onto a new partition on my hard drive, but whenever it boots and then I try to hit "install", it always says it cant find drivers and wont let me proceed. has anyone else come across this issue and/or fixed it? thanks

 

[JohnIvory]

A bunch of people have already chimed in, but here's another, in case you're still looking. This method works for dual-booting any (Windows) operating system, as long as you have the ISO. I've used this since the Vista days, first to tryout 7, then restore it many times, then to try out 8, and now for 10. I don't carry CDs so I boot and install from a USB drive.

1. Get the ISO from Windows Technical Preview - Microsoft Windows. Make sure you get the one for your system (x86 or x86-64).

2. Format your USB drive. Simply right-click on the drive in My Computer/This PC and select format. File system should be FAT32. Use Quick Format.

3. Download this tool from Microsoft: Microsoft Store. (I know the link says Microsoft Store, but that's WPCentral trying to be smart and guess what the page name is). Install it and run it. Point it to wherever you kept your ISO and then point it to your USB drive. It would extract and copy the ISO to the drive.

4. Partition your disk. A nice fellow up ahead already has directions for this, but for some reason Windows doesn't see all the free space on my drive. I use Aomei Partition Manager. Install and run. Select your hard disk, and using the slider pick how much space you want your new partition to be. Microsoft recommends 16 GB for 32-bit Windows and 20 GB for 64-bit. I usually add an extra 10 GB for the pagefile and hiberfil and any programs you might want to install. For 64-bit Windows, 30 GB is a good amount. When you're done hit Apply up in the top menu. Unfortunately Aomei requires a restart to partition your disk, and it takes some time, but for me it was the only option because Disk Management simply wasn't working.

5. After the reboot launch Aomei again. Right-click your new partition and select Create Partition. Pick a drive name, set File System to NTFS and hit OK then Apply.

6. Now restart your PC. Select the USB drive as the boot drive in your BIOS (this varies from system to system) and watch Windows 10 install. Remember to pick Custom Installation, and select the new partition you just made, or the installer will upgrade your Windows 7 or 8 installation.

7. Go through all the setup screens and enjoy the beauty of Windows 10 (I hate the name, BTW).

8. Bonus: Go to File Explorer, select View->Options. In the Navigation Pane area tick "Show Libraries". Now customize all the Libraries to include folders from your original Windows partition, be it music, documents, videos, or even custom libraries. Now you have native-ish access to all the files from your old PC. Windows even indexes those folders so that searching for files is a breeze. Under Manage in the Libraries ribbon in File Explorer you can set these folders to be your default save location. Now you don't have to worry about making/using files on this partition and looking for them if you ever want to go back to your old Windows 8/7 partition.

WARNING: Making a partition does not remove all chances of system failure. I had no issues with the Windows 7 Beta and Release Candidate but the Windows 8 Consumer and Release Previews caused SMART failures on my hard drive (even with the partition) and that of a friend. Of course it's entirely possible that they failed all by themselves, but separate hard drives in separate systems running Windows 8 Preview and dying doesn't seem like a coincidence. The best thing to do is install on a PC that you won't mind getting destroyed or a virtual machine. This is pre-release software. Proceed at your own risk.

 

[JohnIvory]

That sounds like what I'm going to do but what if I decide to NOT dual boot anymore. Can I eventually extend the C: back into the space that was partitioned for the dual boot?

Yes. You'll have to do this from the installation you want to keep. Right click on the partition in Windows Explorer and select Format. Go to Disk Management, right click on the partition, select Delete Volume. Then right click on your main partition and select "Extend Volume", follow the dialog boxes specifying size of extension) et voila! All your space is back. Of course make sure you've moved any data off the partition before doing this or it'll be gone forever.

 

[Andrew Kerr2]

I would say try it out in a VM 1st... use hyper-v its built in in windows 8 pro & 8.1 Pro

 

[travis_valkyrie]

Native VHD Boot

Provided you have a computer with Virtualization support, this is the best way to get Windows 10 up and running with dual boot. It's simple really.

1a. Booting from USB
If you have BIOS:
Get this to prepare USB boot with the Windows 10 ISO file.

If you have UEFI, do not use the tool above! Instead:
Follow this. UEFIs require FAT/32 file system to boot from USB.

Please note that computers these days both have Legacy BIOS/UEFI support, sometimes enabled at the same time, or automatic. In case your computer doesn't boot the Windows 10 Tech Preview, this might be the case of not having the correct file system format to boot.

1b. Booting from DVD drive
Insert a blank DVD-R
Right click on ISO
Burn

2. Setup VHD/X
Open Disk Management
Click the Action menu and then and select Create VHD
Name the file something easy to remember (Windows10VM for example) and put it in C:/ for easy access
Put at least 20GB (or your preferred size) and choose VHDX, Dynamically expanding. You can go for Fixed size but you might wanna install apps on it which will take up extra space.

3. Install to VHD
Insert media with Windows 10 you made from Step 1 and restart
Boot computer to USB or DVD drive (If you are having problems with booting to USB, you'll have to fiddle with your BIOS settings. That, or your computer doesn't support boot to USB)
When you get to the selecting the drive on which you want to install windows, press Shift + F10 to get to a command prompt
Type diskpart, then enter
Type select vdisk file=C:\Windows10VM.vhdx, then enter
Type attach vdisk, then enter
Close command prompt, and hit Refresh
Scroll down to the bottom of the list and you should see your virtual disk
(Optional) Load any third-party drivers you wish to be installed together with the windows installation
Select that and install

 

[theefman]

Slight variation to the above vhd install option, got this link from another forum. All done from within Windows.

MicroNugget: Native Boot to VHD in Windows 8 - YouTube

 

[lSsantos]

I tried to boot from DVD but it didn't work, so I'm going to try it on a Virtual machine.

 

[rahul4aug]

What I have done is install it as generation 2 VM with Hyper-V and added the same vhdx as native boot as well. So I am now able to use it as both with dual boot vhd as well as a guest VM along side Win8.1 as host all at the same time

 

[lSsantos]

I think it didn't work because I have the 86x version, while my system is 64x. It tries to boot from dvd, then get an error and goes to the second boot option. 64x version is bigger than the 86x, that is the reason I got the 86x.

 

[JohnIvory]

I think it didn't work because I have the 86x version, while my system is 64x. It tries to boot from dvd, then get an error and goes to the second boot option. 64x version is bigger than the 86x, that is the reason I got the 86x.

Ever since Windows 7 Microsoft checks your processor before installing. Always get the version your processor supports. If you have time you can redownload the x64 version from a torrent site like PirateBay. It'll be much faster than the direct download from Microsoft's servers.

 

[anon(5383410)]

I just don't see why I need a usb drive for dual boot. I've always been able to just install the second version of windows from within my current windows installation after creating a partition for it.

 

[anon(123856)]

I would say try it out in a VM 1st... use hyper-v its built in in windows 8 pro & 8.1 Pro

This is how I'm running at the moment. It's obviously not as fast as if it was a native install but it's running fairly well so far.

 

[princeegli]

Im running it on my 2009 mac mini....in boot camp....runs nice