How to dual boot Windows XP and Windows 7 (XP installed first)

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James Bannan14 January 2009, 10:00 AM

Related how-tos:

Got your hands on the Windows 7 beta and want to dual boot it alongside Windows XP? Here's our step-by-step tutorial to get you up and running with Microsoft's latest OS.

Page 5 - Step 4 - Managing the Bootloader

Once Windows 7 is installed and the system reboots, you’ll be presented with a boot menu with two options: “Windows 7” and "Earlier Version of Windows”, which is Windows XP.

At this stage, the dualbooting is working perfectly, but if you want to make any changes to the bootloader then you'll start to encounter some differences between the way in which Vista and Windows 7 handle operating systems on different partitions. If you boot into windows 7 and open Windows Explorer, you'll see that there's only one disk partition - the Windows XP partition isn't there. This has the advantage that changes made to the Windows 7 OS have almost no chance of modifying Windows XP, but it does make things tricker if you want to change anything in the bootloader as we will see.

In previous dualbooting tutorials we make use of a utility called EasyBCD by NeoSmart Technologies, which is a very useful frontend GUI for BCDEDIT - the application which lets you view and modify the bootloader in Windows Vista. It also works fine for modifying the Windows 7 bootloader.

Once Windows 7 is installed, call up the browser and navigate to the EasyBCD download page - download the latest version (1.7.2 at the time of writing), install and launch the application.

On the "View Settings" window you can see the entries already present in the bootloader. The main difference between the two entries is the drive which they are loaded from. Windows 7 is loaded from C:, whereas Windows XP is loaded from \Device\Harddisk\Volume1. Now go into "Change Settings". Under "Entry-B ased Settings" you get the option to modify the "Earlier version of Windows" entry, but in the "Drive" drop-down menu you only have the option of C:\ or Boot. Neither of these correspond to where Windows XP is installed, so if you make any changes and click "Save Settings" you'll break the bootloader entry for Windows XP and it won't boot.

There are a few options to get around this. Firstly, leave the boot entry alone - it works fine with the default settings.

Secondly, if you really do feel the need to change the entries, you can assign a drive letter to the Windows XP partition via Windows 7 Disk Management. Right-click on Computer and select "Manage", then click on "Disk Management" in the left-hand window.

On the primary drive there will be two partitions - one defined as C:\ and the other without a drive letter. Right-click on the other partition (this is where Windows XP is installed) and select "Change drive letter or path". Choose a drive letter from the drop-down list and click OK. You'll now have a drive visible within Windows Explorer.

Go back into EasyBCD and into the "Change Settings" window. Change the "Earlier version of Windows" entry to something else, make sure that you select the correct drive letter in the "Drive" drop-down list and click "Save Settings". Reboot the machine and the boot menu will reflect the changes you've made.

The third option is to use BCDEDIT to change the "Earlier version of Windows" entry so that you don't have to assign a drive letter and can keep the original bootloader entry.

To do this, launch a Command Window with elevated access - go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator". Accept the UAC prompt.

Type in BCDEDIT and press Enter. This will display a list of the currently-configured bootloader. You'll see that "Earlier Version of Windows" is handled by the Legacy OS Loader, which has an identifier of [ntldr]. To change the description (which is what you see in the boot menu), type in the following command:

bcdedit /set [ntldr] Description "Windows XP"

Press Enter and the changes are committed. Obviously the description can be anything, but you have to include the quotation marks. Type in BCDEDIT again to make sure that the changes have taken hold, and then reboot. The boot menu will be updated with the modified entry.

If you decide that dual-booting Windows 7 and XP is not for you, then it's fairly easy to wind back the clock using EasyBCD.

All you have to do is remove the Windows 7 boot manager – in EasyBCD go to “Manage Bootloader”, select “Uninstall the Vista Bootloader” and then “Write MBR”. At the moment EasyBCD isn't aware of a distinction between Vista and Windows 7, but using this option still works fine.

Restart the machine and that’s it – the XP boot loader is the only one left on the system and XP loads. You can then delete the Windows 7 partition and use GPartEd to re-extend the partition to take up the entire disk, or the EXTEND command in Vista DISKPART.

Page 1 Intro

Page 2 Step 1 - Introduction

Page 3 Step 2 - Create Free Space for Windows 7

Page 4 Step 3 - Now Install Windows 7

Page 5 Step 4 - Managing the Bootloader

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Tin (User):

APC is out to be the big name in guides for dual booting Win7 too then, hey?
I notice APC still comes up as the top results for doing such things with Vista.

14 January 2009, 12:07 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

bochiman (New user):

This article shows you how to install Windows 7 directly from a previous version of Windows, without burn a DVD. The applications installed in the previous Windows version does not need to be reinstalled: they also work in Windows 7 , just create shortcuts. You will be able to dual boot both operating systems and you will not loose any data.
http://www.downloadtube.com/blog/2009/01/13/dual-boot-windows-7-and-xp-easily-windows-7-installation-directly-from-xp-without-a-livedvd/

15 January 2009, 8:39 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

bochiman (New user):

15 January 2009, 8:42 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Gary69 (New user):

This worked really well for me, but I have one question and sorry for being such a numpty, how do I access the programs which are loaded on the XP partition of my HDD or is that simply not possible

16 January 2009, 1:42 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

JBannan (New user):

If you can see the XP partition from Windows 7, you can certainly launch applications which aren't "installed". For example, appliations which launch from a single executable without needing to have registered DLLs, services, system variables or registry entries should work fine. In other words, the type of appliations which you could launch from a USB drive will work in a dualbooting scenario.

Other apps, like Microsoft Office, are specific to the system they were installed on, and can't be launched properly from another OS even if it can see the partition.

16 January 2009, 9:49 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin (User):

Quoting JBannan:
Other apps, like Microsoft Office, are specific to the system they were installed on, and can't be launched properly from another OS even if it can see the partition.

Which is poor form on behalf of the developers of such apps. Missing registry keys is one of the worst causes of this, yet should be the most recoverable. Notably it's the MS apps that are the worst offenders here... Does that say anything?

For apps that whinge about missing DLLs, you can just copy the file usually. If you copy it to the app's directory instead of Windows, it will work in any future install of Windows too as Windows checks the app dir for dlls it needs too.

16 January 2009, 10:01 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Gary69 (New user):

Thank you for this advice, however I cannot see the XP partition properly, as it does not seem to have a drive letter when I access it via computer management / disk management in control panel. Is there any way to make the volume visible to Win 7?

16 January 2009, 11:24 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

bochiman (New user):

You just have to go to the Program Files in the directory of the application that you need to launch, create a shortcut on the Windows 7 desktop and it will work. And will definitely work not only in the case of portable applications, but also in the case of all application installed on Windows XP (this affirmation was thoroughly tested).

16 January 2009, 7:18 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Barrett (New user):

you have a type-o in your above command line - the use of straight brackets is not permitted. Please use this command instead:

bcdedit /set {ntldr} description "Windows XP"

16 January 2009, 6:06 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

JBannan (New user):

Thanks Barrett - that's definitely a typo on my part.

16 January 2009, 9:41 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dutchice (New user):

Well done! Nice and short.

But here comes my question, I will not be installing W7 on a new partition of the same XP harddisk. Instead I have each OS on a different harddisk.

How can I edit the entries in bootmanager to boot XP on drive D:\ where my XP installation is? (Assuming my new W7 is on C:\, which is the disk the PC will be booting on first)

17 January 2009, 1:07 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

jdpickett (New user):

I am trying to do the same thng but, I want to remove the xp drive now that I am sure that win 7 is working, but when I do there is no OS found
so the menu option where I choose xp or win 7 must be on the xp srive so how do I get hte boot ini and boot.bak or whatever on the drive with win 7

12 November 2009, 3:33 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

reo (New user):

I followed these steps to dual boot XP/Win7. This still does not fix the issue, my system still boots to XP, it bypasses Windows 7 completely.

What am I doing wrong?

21 January 2009, 11:41 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

reo (New user):

del

21 January 2009, 11:43 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

RECONBWARE (New user):

cool, trying it now.... once windows 7 expires, will i be able to format the new partition and then extend my windows xp parition to allocate the unused space?

21 January 2009, 5:46 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin (User):

With some 3rd party software, yes. But it's not something fun to do and can ruin your data, so back up first.

21 January 2009, 6:53 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Gary1948 (New user):

I have 2 hard drives in my pc and want to dual boot XP and Win 7 with one system loaded on each drive. Anyone know if this will work with xp installed on "C" drive and Win 7 installed on "E" drive? Comments, suggestions.

29 January 2009, 1:25 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin (User):

Yep. It works fine (assuming your E drive is empty). Windows 7 installer should detect the Windows XP install and add it as a boot menu item automatically.
Your biggest problem is going to be when the beta expires and you're left with boot stuff from an OS you can't use.

30 January 2009, 2:15 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Gary245 (New user):

29 January 2009, 1:37 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Gary245 (New user):

I have XP installed on my hard drive "C" and want to dual boot using Win 7 on my second hard drive "E" but not sure if it will work. Has anyone done this and how did it work. Advise? Thanks.

30 January 2009, 12:46 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Barrett (New user):

Answering my own question:

When you install Windows Vista as a dual-boot with your regular Windows XP partition, Vista is always set as the default OS. If you want to set XP as the default OS instead, there's a quick command you can run to change it back.

First you'll have to open an administrator command prompt. Type cmd into the search box, and then hit Ctrl+Shift + Enter to open it in administrator mode. You should be prompted for the UAC dialog.

Enter in the following command: bcdedit /default {ntldr}

31 January 2009, 3:11 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Totally (New user):

Can you, from within xp, format the drive (E) that has win 7 on it and have things back to normal?

28 February 2009, 2:08 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

GDavid (New user):

Followed the whole guide, know I have an install of win 7 because I've been in it and noticed BCD contained only one entry (no XP)but when I restart the computer, XP pro boots without any choice of Win7!

Any ideas?

01 March 2009, 11:13 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

audax (New user):

I'm running into a problem. I've got Windows 7 coming up after setting the bootloader, but I was doing it the other way around (Installed XP after Windows 7) and now XP won't even show up. Only the recovery partitions which, I'm assuming, Windows XP created when it was installed. Luckily, there's nothing on the XP partition that I'm worried about losing, but I can't even pull it up in the EasyBCD program. When the partition was set up for the XP install, it was named the I:/ drive. After installing XP, all the files are located on the H:/ drive. But the partition program still has it listed as the I:/ drive. Any ideas?

25 March 2009, 6:47 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

audax (New user):

25 March 2009, 6:48 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Flambe (New user):

I see this tutorial is for having both OS's on one drive. I got a HDD which I want to use for Windows 7, but keep Xp on the main drive. How much different is what I have to do?

06 May 2009, 6:23 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

DonKeating (New user):

I already have WinXP & Vista setup for dual boot.

Can I add Win7 if I add another partition so I'll have "Triple" boot?

Thanks.

>don<

06 May 2009, 10:50 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

balveda (New user):

Well, my installation did not go smoothly. I made unallocated space for W7 to my second hard-drive and installed W7 to that partition hoping the W7 bootloader will find XP-partition. Alas it did not. I was not given boot-screen with multiple OS option, computer booted straight to W7. Now my XP-partition is missing :(

08 May 2009, 9:44 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

galactos (New user):

can anybody confirm if this works the same on a raid 0 config already with a seperate partition?

14 May 2009, 11:50 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin (User):

If you mean software RAID (which most motherboard RAID controllers are) then I would be extremely careful... it should work, but you are running a very fragile storage system. I personally wouldn't do it unless it was a test box I didn't care about having to reformat.

14 May 2009, 12:22 PM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

galactos (New user):

Well, I already tried installing vista from a flash drive and lost the raid software for xp, not even managing the loader will bring it back. I'm wondering if windows 7 would not discard the raid file for xp since windows 7 is god.

15 May 2009, 12:04 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

galactos (New user):

can anybody confirm if this will work the same in a raid 0 config when managing the loader for xp, or should it be an easy fix and enjoyment afterward s?? Plzzzz someone tell me. thanks much...

15 May 2009, 12:02 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Cory H (New user):

Hi. I was just wondering. I already have windows 7 installed as the only OS. Now I want to add XP. Is it possible to go backwards like this or do I have to reformat the disk and load xp first?

25 May 2009, 4:49 PM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Bongsky (New user):

Yes it is. Provided that you have created a separate partition for XP.

06 October 2010, 5:28 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

ceb39 (New user):

Installing Windows 7 on a computer running Windows XP Pro via the method above entails generating a new partition. Does the installation process allow for this step to be skipped? I already have my hard drive partitioned with Partition Magic with space for 7.

Same question but for the Linux installation described elsewhere on this site. I already have a partition for Linux on a second drive.

ceb39

26 May 2009, 1:39 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Manokent (New user):

XP and Windows7 are working great but I had to revert to an old keyboard connected to ps/2 in order to dual boot as the usb keyboard isn't being recognised on boot up,(even though it's a Microsoft product), even tried a ps/2/usb connector but no luck. Has anyone a solution to this?

28 August 2009, 3:20 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

SnapCount (New user):

I have had used this method to dual boot both XP and Win7. But now I need to re-install XP again. By reinstalling XP will I loose my boot of Win7? If the boot loader for Win7 stays, will it show 2 installs of XP?

09 September 2009, 10:00 PM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

aksingh (New user):

its 1000000000000000% working mate
a perfect theory was tested by me
aksingh

25 September 2009, 1:22 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

aksingh (New user):

its 1000000000000000% working mate
a perfect theory was tested by me
aksingh

25 September 2009, 1:23 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

aksingh (New user):

A 100% WORKING THEORY TESTED BY ME

25 September 2009, 1:23 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

dj_cazpurr (New user):

Just so you know, Sometimes the brackets are wrong, they can be [ntldr] and {ntldr} Just so you know, maybe make some changes and edit that! thank you

27 September 2009, 2:09 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

radegonda (New user):

hi,

i recently installed win7 on a second harddisk (in dual boot with existing XP), I was excited about win7 and everything went smooth, untill I wanted to boot XP again: Nothing ... BSOD and immediate reboot.
I disabled the 2nd HDD (the one with win7) still no go. tried some other stuff, nothing helped.
I searched for the error message I got (filmed it with a digital camera because the message came up for only a fraction of a sec) on the net,
finally I ended up with an old sollution for that error, but it was for windows 2000 !! I tried it and I was astonished that it worked for my XP !
So basically what I did is remove a few keys in the Registry and it got solved. XP boots again in dual boot with Win7 (I guess because I haven't connected the 2 HDD yet or tried it, so after writing this message I 'll try to reboot. If I don't reply on my own message, everything went fine !)

here is the error message in the BSOD I filmed:
***STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF741B84C,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

sollution found :
1. Remove the hard disk that contains the system partition from the computer that does not start, install the hard disk in the second computer, and then start the second computer.
2. On the second computer, click Start, click Run, type regedt32 in the Open box, and then click OK.
3. In Registry Editor, click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and then on the Registry menu, click Load Hive.
4. Locate, and then click the System file that contains the hive of the first computer's operating system.

Note The System file is in the Drive:\Winnt\System32\Config folder, where Drive is the drive letter of the hard disk that is from the first computer.
5. Click Open, type Temp in the Key Name box, and then click OK.
6. Double-click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and then double-click Temp.
7. Double-click ControlSet00n, where n is the number of the control set.
8. Double-click Services, double-click dmio, and then click Boot Info.
9. Right-click the Primary Disk Group registry key, and then click Delete.
10. Repeat steps 7 through 9 for each instance of ControlSet00n that appears in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Temp subkey.
11. Click Temp, and then on the Registry menu, click Unload Hive, and then click Yes.
12. Quit Registry Editor.
13. Shut down the second computer, and then remove the hard disk that is from the first computer.
14. Reinstall the hard disk in the first computer, and then start the first computer.

kind regards,

Lo...

26 October 2009, 9:39 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

TheRaven (New user):

I just wanted to let everyone know how I did it. First, I need to tell you all that I did a very bad thing to my computer. Everything was going fine, I had XP and 7 installed and working. But then one of my partions disappeared and ended up becoming some hidden oem partition which made no sense. So I tried to get it back by going into "DISKPART" and that's when all my troubles started. I'm just lucky I didn't accidentally erase both hard drives, only the partitioned one that had XP and 7 on it. The other hard drive was safe. Anyway...

My computer is weird. It has a SATA drive and when I tried to install XP it kept giving me a blue screen. It was very bad. So, for me, I had to go into the bios and change the setting where it says "SATA mode" or something like that. I changed it from AHCI to IDE mode (I think). Mind you, Vista originally came with my computer and at the time that is what I had on my computer. Once in IDE mode, I was able to install XP on one of my partitions. It reassigned my drive letters so that when I was in XP, XP was installed on E: and Vista was on D: while my other hard drive became C:. I didn't understand why but at least it worked. To boot back into Vista, I would have to go back into the bios and switch back to AHCI mode. Then it would boot into Vista and the drive letters would go back to the original way, Vista on C:, other hard drive on D: and for some odd reason, XP on H:. This was basically how I was able to boot from both XP and Vista. Later on I installed 7 over my Vista and it still worked the same way. Now at this moment I am in a bit of a hell because I erased all the partitions on the main drive by typing CLEAN. Oops. But at least I get to do a fresh install of 7 now and then I will go back to IDE mode to do the XP install after I shrink the volume where 7 is to allocate some space for XP. Oh, and btw, I had to physically remove the other hard drive to do this because for some reason the computer did not want to boot with both drives in it. It would not let me install properly with both hard drives in it. I figured that removing the other drive would help and I was right, I am installing 7 as we speak on it. (It's an ACER Aspire 8930G laptop btw) I am using my husband's laptop to write this message. :)

08 December 2009, 1:09 PM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Sean71 (New user):

I am having a similar problem and wanted to know how your installation ended up.

I bought a new computer with 7 installed on it. One of the software programs I would like to run on the computer won't work right in 7 so I decided to set up a dual boot with XP. I followed the directions for "dual booting Vista and XP (with Vistal installed first)." When I tried to install XP, I would get the blue screen of death at the point the installation program "launches windows". I got over that by going into the BIOS and changing a setting from "RAID" to "primary IDE". Then I got XP up and running and used EBCD to set up the dual boot. When I restarted the computer to go into 7, I forgot to change the BIOS setting back to "RAID" and got the blue screen of death trying to launch 7.

So I changed the BIOS setting back to "RAID" and 7 luanched fine. But then I would get a black screen of death when I tried to launch XP. So I tried reinstalling XP again (with BIOS set to "Primary IDE", but kept getting installation errors. Finally, I just decided to go into 7. I changed the BIOS to "RAID" and then then I got a Disc error before the dual boot screen would come up. I had to use the windows 7 repair disc I had created to get the computer working again.

Is there any chance I can get a dual boot to work on my machine?

03 January 2010, 4:27 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

teeshteesh (New user):

I have Windows XP on 1 partition. I have another partition of 30 GB free. I would like to install Windows 7 on that partition. I would also like to have a dual booting option. Email: teresapartridge@msn.com

26 October 2009, 11:40 PM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

katchalova (New user):

How do you start from a cd?

05 November 2009, 10:00 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

mbowen (New user):

Portlock Leap Frog will assist you in creating a bootable Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) for native Windows deployment with your Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 machine. The VHD can be used as the running operating system on supported hardware without a virtual machine or hypervisor. This provides an excellent way for end users who wish to utilize the VHD technology and setup a multi-boot environment with Windows XP and Windows Vista without having to "Upgrade" or repartition the hard disk.
http://www.portlock.com/products/leap_frog/

10 November 2009, 3:14 PM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend