Windows 8 Regarding Dual-boot

[Drew]

Let's say W7 & W8. Let's say there's a Sys drive & a Data drive & maybe others, too. When > Computer in the W7, see all the drives. AND... when in W8 > Computer AND still see & can access ALL the same drives... nice bonus to dual-boot, can get @ & use everything you already have from BOTH OSs. If, you don't have a spare machine & can dual-boot (have drive availability), it's a great method & sure beats a VM. Also, since you can see both OSs, it an easy Drag-n-Drop to copy wanted Favorites, Favorites Bar, Documents, Pictures & so on over from 1 OS to the other. A tip - when switching OSs, Log Off from the one you will not be using. Cheers, Drew

 

[Mitchell_A]

Let's say W7 & W8. Let's say there's a Sys drive & a Data drive & maybe others, too. When > Computer in the W7, see all the drives. AND... when in W8 > Computer AND still see & can access ALL the same drives... nice bonus to dual-boot, can get @ & use everything you already have from BOTH OSs.

I take advantage of this while dual booting. I've left all my personal files on my Windows 7 partition, and configured my libraries on the Windows 8 side to just add my personal folders in from the other partition. It's definitely more efficient than duplicating everything. I only recently discovered that you can also add network folders to the library, so I'm thinking my next stop is to setup my main system to just retrieve all my content from my secondary system, which I use mostly as a media center.

 

[Joe S]

I used a virtual hard disk and didn't mess with another partition. Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprisr allow creating a bootable virtual hard disk.
Joe

 

[Medico]

Dual Boot Win 7, Win 8 CP with a separate Data Drive. I installed most apps in Win 8 that I had installed in Win 7 and pointed to data in data drive from same apps in Win 7. I have been using the Win 8 CP partition all day doing all my work today. Have not booted to Win 7 at all today. My financial app (Quicken) points to my Quicken file in the data drive so whether I use Win 7 or Win 8 CP the data file is the same file. Same with other data apps. This works well for me. I am about 2 make an Image of the Win 7 and Win 8 CP partitions. I will do this from outside both OSes. The Image will be comprised of both OSes. I will boot into Win 7 just long enough to clean everything up because I always do before creating an Image.

 

[Drew]

Yep, yep & yep, Ted. It's pretty slick done thusly. When one can see & access everything in the box & either OS & so quickly & conveniently copy or move thing over or about... I, too, since getting want I want put wherever (of & from W7 to W8) am spending most of my time w/ 8. Gotta get to know it & critique it so, majority of time spent w/ it only makes (good) sense. + (bonus) using the functionality of 8 is proving to be quite fun & enjoyable... it, actually, gets likable rather quickly.

Instead of using a VPC vm, I was considering creating a bootable virtual hard disk since, I have Ultimate. But then, recently (cus I never used it) I blew away the W7 x86 I had on a drive in this machine, knowing it would be so straightforward to install W8 there (instead) & be so workable & 'real'. And when MS has the next Build to be tested, can easily blow this install away & quickly replace it w/ the next.... and, I always do clean installs, anyway.

 

[Medico]

In point of fact in many cases I had the exe files of the apps on my Win 7 partition and simply pointed to these files from within Win 8 CP and installed the apps from there, then pointed to the data on the 3rd (Data) partition. really slick!

 

[Drew]

Yes, Ted, that's it. I did the same, very smooth... You install to 8 from where the installer is already located. For example my installer for CCleaner is in a Misc. Tools folder on my Data drive; installed to or on 8 from there... leaving no need to take the time or trouble to download the same installer to somewhere on the W8 C:\ . Oh, yes, really slick. To have it be so seamless and not even non-virual

Drew

 

[Drew]

Oh & we didn't mention that it, the added OS grabs the Printer, Camera & such, already attached machine, as that peripheral gear becomes common hardware, too

 

[Medico]

My printer is attached to my router and my Win 8 CP sees it just fine. I had to install the driver from, you guessed it, my data partition. If I plug in my phone or camera the OS will install the drivers automatically, This is so cool.

 

[Drew]

Have we having fun, yet? LOL. Ted, ya should like a kid @ Xmas But, yeah, it is cool

 

[Night Hawk]

Hello I'm a bit new here as you might have guessed!

The simple solution was already having a second OS drive waiting ahead of time for W8. The Developer Preview went right onto VM Player solving that one fast enough while the CP will not install on any VM ware or VirtualBox it appear. Glad to hear someone saw a good install to VHD at least!

About the second drive however the 7 host drive was unplugged to see a stand alone install of the CP which then saw a new boot entry added in for 7 once the host drive was replugged. As far as file 3 other drives one external solve storage and system image problems fast there.

Once the 7 host drive was made the default boot device later a new boot entry for 8 was added but needed a fast repair due to the winloader error seen immediately. Solution? Boot live with the CP dvd and check out the new look for the Repair tools! The Startup Repair took immediate action to see W8 made available by adding the new mbr and boot information on the host drive.

The BCD stores between both versions are the same while the boot files and mbr entries had initially lacked on the 7 drive having made the second drive bootable for the CP itself. Yet now regardless of which drive is booted into the option for either 7 or 8 is seen. The program used was the EasyBCD 2.0.2 version not being the latest but recent enough.

 

[catilley1092]

That "Data" partition that Ted mentioned is very valuable to me. I have my custom libraries in that partition, that I can access on any of my dual or tri boot drives. Drag & Drop is a wonderful function, it works for me, from every version of Windows since 2000 Pro. My browsers are set to download to the folder in that partition.

I also have a partition for VM's (including XP Mode) on those drives that has them. Keeping them together reduces fragmented files greatly. This also allows for smaller OS partitions, smaller is better in regards to this. Keeping a 500GB "C" partition can be quite a mess, whereas 50 to 60GB is quite plenty for most users. That is one of the primary uses of those 60GB SSD's, keep the OS on that, while having whatever other size storage partition(s) elsewhere.

It works so much better that way. And if your OS becomes malware infected, at the 1st chance, power down, remove the storage drive & clean the malware/virus, or reinstall & start over. Once the computer (the "C" partition) is clean, make sure to scan the data drive with your favorite AV & MBAM. From there, one can start over.

It's also a good idea to keep your installer files for your desired programs onto a flash drive, and back those up on DVD from time to time. That way, you'll have 2 copies of your valuable files.

Cat

 

[Night Hawk]

I keep a 1tb host drive maintained here well enough and never have any worries about malwares between having an effective system protection inplace and even more important full system image backups of the main drive stored in safe places!

Even if I have an oops with something I can simply restore the latest image to bring everything back as it was. That can be the better life saver!

Now that option first seen in the Vista Ultimate, Enterprise editions followed by being seen in all but Starter for 7 is a bit different for the W8 CP however. The MSDN blog to lookover for creating a full system image can be seen at Link Removed

 

[Joe S]

I went to a data partition years ago. It makes reinstalling the OS less of a job when you don't have to reinstall of your data too. I also found that VMs run better on a separate drive when I installed a second HD last year and moved the VMs there. I installed both versions of W8 on the VHD. When you are you are done you can just delete the file and the entry for it on the boot tab.
Joe

 

[Night Hawk]

The problem I seem to be running into as far as having W8 CP on VM Player is being able to connect online! For some reason the default NAT setting simply won't connect while every other VM has seen an immediate connect.

Fortunately I simply custom installed 8 onto a second drive used for testing ahead of time!

Finally got around to getting that Start screen squared away for the time being at least.

Link Removed

 

[Joe S]

With VMware they seem to have more problems with NAT I normally used Bridged and don't have problems. I've got Workstation 7 so I didn't bother trying W8 in it after I was there were problems on there forums. Have you checked the VMware forums? They have some really knowledgeable people there.
Joe

 

[Night Hawk]

I will likely be taking a look to see what is found on problems with hard wired ethernet connections if any. The VM Player is mainly a reference install while dual booted in 7 rather then rebooting the system simply to check on something or add something new like the StartMenu7 program just added on earlier.

 

[Night Hawk]

With VMware they seem to have more problems with NAT I normally used Bridged and don't have problems. I've got Workstation 7 so I didn't bother trying W8 in it after I was there were problems on there forums. Have you checked the VMware forums? They have some really knowledgeable people there.
Joe

I couldn't find any edit button to update the previous post here about the turn of events as far as what has been a problem seen with the VMware Player 4.0. Upon hearing of the 4.02 version's release immediately following the December 2011 4.0 version's I went for the new to see another 8 CP VM and saw immediate results! Note the image here.

Link Removed

Apparently VMware must have discovered a coding error in the 4.0 release and rushed to see that corrected in the 4.02 as far as not seeing the VMware Tools download and install fully. The fresh install of the just released corrected version and new VM saw instant results with the default NAT setting as seen in the screen there.