Some help with Dual-booting Vista and Windows 7?

I got everything working, but in the middle of the windows 7 install it has to restart. Then it comes to a dual-boot screen that has windows setup and vista. If I click Vista it tells me that the instillation didn't work. If I click Windows Setup, then will it overwrite the Vista even though I told it to install to a separate drive in the beginning. Can someone who has some experience with this help me? Thank you so much in advance!

 

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I really want to get this working so could someone PLEASE help! It is just a little part of it I don't know how to do.

 

see this thread here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=259759

it has links that tell you how to set up your computer for dual-booting. i used that website myself about 4 days ago and it does make things very easy for you.

 

That is not what I mean. I know how to install, partition, etc. I just don't know what to do after the first restart when I have to choose between Windows Setup or Windows Vista Home. I'm afraid that if I say Windows Setup it will overwrite my Vista, and I don't want to run primarily on a beta (although I have heard it is just about as stable as Vista).

 

When i setup windows 7 for a dual boot, i just let the computer run when i restarted, instead of selecting an option i just left it alone and let the computer do it's job, if you've installed it on a seperate partition, I don't see any reason for the installation process to touch your vista partition.

 

I created a partition the other day on an old PC running XP, firstly I couldn't install by starting the pc and selecting the drive it error'd for whatever reason maybe because it was a DVD.
Anyway after I had it installed I just left it when it wanted to restart, you get 20 odd seconds to select which OS you want on startup but just leave it be.

 

If you selected a different partition to install Windows 7 on, then it won't touch your Vista partition.

 

Thank you everybody! I got it working dual-boot. I was wondering if there is any way to either run the programs I installed on Vista or a way to increase the size of my Windows 7 partition?

 

you usually have to use a 3rd party partitioner or a LiveCD to resize partitions, unless you have a 3rd partition that is a storage drive?

 

Technically I have one drive with multiple partitions. I used the built in Vista partition manager to create the partition. I have tried to de-locate 10mb from the C partition and re-locate it to the W partition (just to test), but it won't let me expand the volume, only shrink it. What 3rd party program (free please) would you recommend to expand my W partition and I shrink my C with the Vista drive manager (or I guess it could just re-locate the hard drive space)?

 

Just you the built in WIndows vista partition
1. uninstall win 7
2. Boot into vista
3. Start-run-diskmgmt.msc
4. Right Click on the vista partiton
5. Shrink volume
6. Click on the unlocated space and hit start new volume or something like that.
7. Shut down vista and pc. boot into windows 7 installation without starting the os so just boot from cd. Install vista on the new partition you created.

TELL ME IF THIS WORKS AND GOOD LUCK
Regards mike

 

how do i uninstall it exactly? thanks for the info though...

 

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