Windows 7 - dual boot anyone?

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Anyone dual boot into Windows 7 to try it out? I really want to try out the new Beta but I don't want to mess with my main Vista laptop.
 
Dual boot is easy to install and uninstall. Simple use Vista to partition part of the drive for 7 and reboot with your 7 DVD.

When your tired of the 7, boot into vista and loose the partition.
 
Well this is frustrating.

I have a 120GB HD on the Vista laptop of which I have 60GB free and the Vista Disk Manager can only allocate 12 GB. This didn't change even when I turned off the pagefile. WTH?

Windows 7 apparently has a 16gb min. requirement.
frown.gif
 
Personally, I would purchase a cheap 2nd drive and use it as a sandbox to play with Win7, or any other OS. With an additional connector, you can use the other drive as a USB storage disk.
 
Originally Posted By: chuckerants
Well this is frustrating.

I have a 120GB HD on the Vista laptop of which I have 60GB free and the Vista Disk Manager can only allocate 12 GB. This didn't change even when I turned off the pagefile. WTH?

Windows 7 apparently has a 16gb min. requirement.
frown.gif



Does your 120GB drive have 60GB on the *same* partition? If so, the installation disk may not be able to clear that much data for a new partition just because it's free; it may only deem 12GB as partitionable.

Also, I have seen many manufactured systems with a disk partition for backups and system restores. For example, D:\HP_BACKUP or something to that effect.

I guess the first thing I'd try when troubleshooting is to defrag the main drive to ease any NTFS partition resizing attempts and try 'er again.
 
Yup, I only have one partition on C Drive.

After some research, it seems the inability to "shrink" the HD may be ue to some immovable system files that Vista puts at the end of the partition.

I may try using an external USB drive before trying a 3rd party partition manager.

the
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: chuckerants
Well this is frustrating.

I have a 120GB HD on the Vista laptop of which I have 60GB free and the Vista Disk Manager can only allocate 12 GB. This didn't change even when I turned off the pagefile. WTH?

Windows 7 apparently has a 16gb min. requirement.
frown.gif



Does your 120GB drive have 60GB on the *same* partition? If so, the installation disk may not be able to clear that much data for a new partition just because it's free; it may only deem 12GB as partitionable.

Also, I have seen many manufactured systems with a disk partition for backups and system restores. For example, D:\HP_BACKUP or something to that effect.

I guess the first thing I'd try when troubleshooting is to defrag the main drive to ease any NTFS partition resizing attempts and try 'er again.
 
I have dual boot of W7 right now and XP. You manage to get a product key for W7? They stopped allowing download of w7 a few weeks ago along with product keys for it.
 
I ended up using Easeus Partition Master to free up 24GB and installed W7. It's funny how I had 60GB free before and with a new 25GB partition, I now have 54GB free. This must be the new math according to Microsoft.
wink.gif


And no I don't have product key. It asked for it, but I just hit NEXT and it installed fine. I have version 7077.

Originally Posted By: Buffman
I have dual boot of W7 right now and XP. You manage to get a product key for W7? They stopped allowing download of w7 a few weeks ago along with product keys for it.
 
I have a dual boot Vista and Windows 7 set-up. I use Vista at work b/c only officially released OS's can be used in mission critical environments. I use Windows 7 at home with absolutely no complaints. I actually wish I could use Windows 7 at work now.
 
Originally Posted By: chuckerants
I ended up using Easeus Partition Master to free up 24GB and installed W7. It's funny how I had 60GB free before and with a new 25GB partition, I now have 54GB free. This must be the new math according to Microsoft.
wink.gif


And no I don't have product key. It asked for it, but I just hit NEXT and it installed fine. I have version 7077.

Originally Posted By: Buffman
I have dual boot of W7 right now and XP. You manage to get a product key for W7? They stopped allowing download of w7 a few weeks ago along with product keys for it.


Interesting. My build is 7000. When I checked last they wouldn't let you download from them... Glad you got it going.
 
So far, W7 seems to be noticibly faster that Vista. Some of that perception could be that I have a clean install, but I even notice the speed on W7 in a simple opertion like rendering photos in a directory.

Vista takes forever to convert photo icons to thumbnails but W7 is MUCH faster.
 
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