Windows 10 Any way to keep Win7 and dual boot it with Win 10?

[Welshed]

So, I was in my local PC shop the other day buying an SSD, and the guy at the counter said to me something about being able to run 7 & 10 on the same machine (my current copy of windows 7 and the copy of windows 10 that you get by doing the free upgrade), by like saving your copy of 7 before connecting to the microsoft upgrade server, and then downloading 10? I was in quite a hurry so I didnt catch a lot of what he was saying, but what I'm trying to say is that, is there a way to keep my copy of windows 7, and then dual boot that with windows 10?

Finn

 

[dssjr85]

Yes, you can. I'm not going to go into specific step by steps (that would be a 10 page guide) but just general steps to get it done. Every step can be googled and detailed instructions can be found. If you have access to software like Paragon Partition Manager, you can boot into it, make your partition and copy them all at once. That would eliminate some of the steps. A better solution would be to do this in a virtual machine if your pc has good enough hardware. That way you can run both OS's at the same time. But if you do the following steps, you can accomplish what you are asking.
1. You need to create a second partition on your hard drive. You can do this easily by using Windows Disk Management.
2. Backup your system if you want to restore it to the new partition.
3. Install a third party bootloader like GRUB.
4. Install a fresh copy of Windows 7 on your second partition. If you don't have an install disk, you can download the images somewhere on the internet and make a bootable USB.
5. Restore your system from the backup.
6. Upgrade the second install to Windows 10.

Now you have Windows 7 and Windows 10 on the same PC.

 

[maybe]

Sounds great. I have a few questions.

Step 1: create what kind of partition? A Bootable partition? How large?

Step 2: I assume restore everything, system and installed programs and data? Correct?

Have you tried this? Does it work?

 

[dssjr85]

When you run the windows installer, it will make the partition bootable. But you need to have that partition created before you boot from your windows installer disc. I recommend at least 100GB but the size really depends on what your'e using it for.

Yes you will do a full system backup including documents, applications, etc. to an external drive. Once you have installed windows on the second partition, you can restore everything from that backup.

I haven't tried this, however, I have upgraded Windows 7 to Windows 10 in a virtual machine. This VM was using the same license as my actual hardware and both operating systems are still working.