Windows 7 ~ 8 Dual Boot Set up

[fortkentdad]

Originally Posted by NyteOwl

I multiboot my systems using the old fashioned method of installing the OSes on their own bootable drives and then using the BIOS alternate boot device option to select soemthing other than the default. It saves messing around with chaining boot loaders, and boot loader order etc. While it does require the BIOS option, and is perhaps not the most elegant solution, it does work without boot loader hassles.

Mind you, I find virtual machines even less of a hassle (once set up and operational) and more convenient.

So much to learn.

I have two O.S.'s each on their own SSD. When my system turns on I get a blue screen that looks like the old DOS screen and can choose either Windows 7 (default) or Windows 8 (or Memory Test which shows up at the bottom of the screen).

I am not sure what the "BIOS alternative boot device option" is but I'll take a look see in my BIOS for that.

And I have no idea what you mean by a "chaining boot loaders" or their hassles, nor a "virtual machine" with even less hassle.

Mine just works.

I've just re-installed my Win8 OS so have a clean drive to work from now. I had filled the 120 GB SSD and was getting 2203 error codes which I could not seem to get around. This time I go slow and back up the system after each major change.

[NyteOwl]

When my machinen boots, it will boot into whatever I have set in BIOS as the boot device. If I press F8 at boot time, it will finish the basic POST tests then present me with a menu of available devices I can boot from. In my case Floppy, Optical, USB, or any one of three RAID-1 arrays (one of which is the default). I simple select which alternate I want and the system boots from that device.

The second method of dual-booting is to install one OS as the first option. Then install the second OS. An entry in the bootloader sequence has to be made for the second OS, either manually or by the install script, so that when the second OS is selected controll is transfered to its boot laoder. This is known as chaining bootloaders. The hassles can be when they don't want to "play nice together".

Virtual machines are just what they sound like. One creates a virtual device using software such as VMWare, VirtualBox, etc. that functions like a separate computer (but using only one set of hardware) on which you can then install operating systems and software. Each "virtual machine" functions as a separate entity (though they can be setup to share data and resources) isolated from each other.

Hope that makes more sense.

[fortkentdad]

On my system if I press the delete key while the ASUS logo is on the screen it goes to the BIOS menu, there is a Boot Menu there which lists all my bootable devices and if I click on the hard drive it boots from that one. That used to mean if I chose the Intel SSD it would boot to Windows 7 and if I chose the Kingston SSD it would boot to Windows 8. But since I've reloaded Windows 8 that does not happen anymore? Not sure why, for a while no matter which drive I chose it went directly to Windows 8. I set up the dual boot option in Windows 8 and now it does give me that choice, but the BIOS boot no longer gives me a direct bypass of the menu to the OS of my choice.

So now it does not matter which SSD drive I choose the both go to a DOS like Black (not blue) screen where I can choose either Windows 7 or Windows 8. I've set Win7 as the default because my dear wife uses the PC at times and does not like Win8 after her first effort at it. She just does not think it is worth the effort to learn a new way of navigating the system, so it is simple for her, she just turns on the PC and let it do its thing and eventually it loads Windows 7.

BUT Sometimes this choice does not appear and it boots directly into Windows 8. When this happens I have to go to the command prompt in Win 8 (as administrator) and enter: bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy (Google can deliver wonderful tid bits of interesting information). I have not isolated what has happened for the boot menu policy to change, but something is causing that settting to change and I have t manual reset it every now and then. It's been good for a few days, I've been reinstalling software in Windows 8 after a complete reloading of the OS, so maybe some of the installs re-write that code (who knows why?). But it is a simple enough fix and seems to work for at least a while.

I did google up the Virtual Machine idea, apparently that can be done within Win8 now. "The Windows 8 Pro and Enterprise versions include the Hyper-V virtual machine manager that was originally built into Windows Server." I'll be looking a little more into that feature. And post my experience with that.

[fortkentdad]

I did look into the Virtual Machine in Windows 8, but I'm not sure what the advantage would be. Have not set it up yet, but might. I've got my games loaded in Windows 7 on a dual boot now, I'd have to reload all those games again if I were to use them on a virtual machine in Windows 8.