How to dual boot Windows 7 and Windows XP

How to dual boot Windows 7 and Windows XP

It seems that you just want a Dual boot OS of WIN XP and WIN 7. You already have 3 partitions on your HDD, which is the basic requirement to have a dual boot OS. Let's assume you have a DVD ROM on your PC. Follow this steps below to have a running WIN XP and WIN 7 dual bootable OS.

1. Have a WIN 7 installer DVD. Configure BIOS to first boot on your DVD ROM.
2. Boot to your DVD WIN 7 installer.
3. Just follow installation procedures but the most important thing is when the installer asks for the type of installation, choose custom installation. You will be directed to the HDD partition page. Now choose to install the WIN 7 OS on the other remaining partition, which has a disk space above 10 GB. Since you already have a WIN XP installed, the first partition is where the WIN XP is installed. Don't use that partition for installing WIN 7. It would be best to install 2 different OS on different partitions, to avoid error and conflicts.
4. Finish installation of WIN 7 by following normal procedures. Update drivers if needed and install application after WIN 7 finishes installation. Now you have a Dual boot of WIN XP and WIN 7 with WIN 7 as your default boot.
5. Once you restart your PC, you will notice that you will be selecting the 2nd option. You can reduce the selection time by setting it in startup and recovery settings, under the advance settings of My Computer.

Earlier version of windows —-> select if want to boot to your WIN XP.

Windows 7 —-> select if you want to boot to WIN 7.

Warning:

Your installed application at WIN XP was not installed in the WIN 7, you need to install it again the application.

Don't be confused, if some drive letters get interchanged. If you boot to WIN XP, then the partition where it is installed will be marked as drive C: While if you boot to WIN 7, the partition where it is installed will be marked as drive C: