Dual boot Windows 8 with Windows 7

Information

This article will show you how to set up a dual boot installation with Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows 7, when Windows 7 is already installed.

Note

Windows 8 Consumer Preview System Requirements

Windows 8 Consumer Preview works great on the same hardware that powers Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster

RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)

Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device or higher

Additional requirements to use certain features:

To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multi-touch.

To access the Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768.

To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768.

Tip

If you dual boot Windows 8 with another OS (ex: Windows 7 or Vista) with Windows 8 set as the default OS to run at startup, then it gives you the Change default or choose other options link as in the example screenshot below to make it easier to boot into the Startup Options menu for more System Recovery Options.

NOTE: 

This is the new "Windows Boot Manager" screen that Windows 8 use’s now to allow you to select either Windows 8 (Windows Consumer Preview) or say Windows 7 to start when your boot or restart the computer. Clicking on the Change default or choose other options link at the bottom will allow you to change the default time to wait before starting the default OS, change the default OS to start automatically after the wait time, or choose a recovery option.

Here's How:

1. Start Windows 7 or Vista, and log on to an administrator account. Go to either step 2 or 3 below for what you wanted to install Windows 8 on.

2. If you already have a Empty Hard Drive or Partition to Install Windows 8 On

A) Go to step 4.

3. If you want to shrink a Partition to Install Windows 8 On

A) Shrink a partition, such as the Windows 7 partition (ex: C: drive), in Disk Management by at least 20GB (20480MB) (1GB=1024MB) to have unallocated space to be able to install Windows 8 on. (see screenshots below)

NOTE:  

This example has the 100 MB System Reserved partition that Windows 7 creates when installed on an unallocated HDD. If your Windows 7 installation does not have the 100 MB System Reserved partition, then that is fine since this will still work to dual boot with Windows 8. Just do not delete the 100 MB System Reserved partition if you do have one.

4. Do either step 5 or 6 below for how you want to start installing Windows 8.

5. To Install Windows 8 at Boot to Dual boot with Windows 7 or Vista

A) Insert or connect your Windows 8 installation DVD or USB thumb drive, and restart the computer to boot from your Windows 8 installation media.

B) Go to step 7.

6. To Install Windows 8 from within Windows 7 or Vista to Dual Boot with

A) Do step B or C below depending on if you are using a Windows 8 DVD/USB or a Windows 8 ISO.

B) Insert or connect your Windows 8 installation DVD or USB thumb drive. In the Computer window, right click on the Windows 8 installation USB/DVD drive, and click on Open. Go to step 6D.

OR

C) After installing a free program like 7-Zip, right click on the Windows 8 ISO file, select 7-Zip and click on Extract Files, extract the ISO file to a folder (ex: Windows Developer Preview) on your Desktop in Windows 7 or Vista, and open the extracted folder when finished.

D) Open the sources folder first, and run the setup.exe file inside the sources folder. (See screen shots below)

Warning

If you run the setup file in the root directory instead of the one in the sources folder, then you will be upgrading Windows 7 or Vista to Windows 8 instead of dual booting with Windows 8 and will lose Windows 7 or Vista.

E) Click on the Go online to get the latest updates for installation option. (See screenshot below)

F) Continue on to step 7.

7. You can now finish doing a clean install of Windows 8 to either the empty HDD or partition from step 2, or the unallocated space created in step 3. Be sure to not select your Windows 7 or Vista partition to install Windows 8 to. If you do, Windows 8 will replace it.

NOTE: 

The screenshot below is at step 7 in the clean install tutorial.

8. When finished, you will be in Windows 8 with Windows 8 set as the default OS to start after the wait time. Restarting Windows 8 will allow you to be able to select what OS you would like to start like in the example at the top of the tutorial.