What's the best way to try out Win 7 on a Vista machine?

Just downloaded the 2.36GB of the Win 7 ISO file. I've been happy with Vista so I don't want to mess it up but I want to try Win 7 to see what the fuss is all about. Good chance is that I will delete it after a few days since I am running out of HD space.

I am thinking to create a partition (it will prompt to create one, right?) during the installation and try it out. If I do delete it after a few days, what would be the best way to uninstall it and delete the partition? The last thing I want is for it to mess up my vista.

Thanks in advance.

 

You have to first shrink your Vista partition, then create a new partition from the free space during install. As for uninstalling, just format the new partition, delete it, and increase the shrunk partition.

 

Best way possible is through a virtual machine, using VMware Workstation or Player. That way you install on a virtual drive for testing purposes and then it can be deleted with no problem at all. This is if you don't want to do a dual boot machine.

Now for dual booting, you can follow Lithus advice, I actually think you should do a little search over the forum to find the correct procedure...hell, I feel kind today so here you have two links for the complete procedure:

http://lifehacker.com/5126781/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-with-xp-or-vista)

http://maketecheasier.com/how-to-dual-boot-win-vista-with-windows-7/2009/01/11

 

best way to enjoy is to install it

 

lol just playing i used G parted to create a partition so i could install win 7 on my machine

then when i got a new hard drive i ran vista on one and win 7 on the pther

 

You can also use the built in disk management in Vista.

 

Ditto on the Virtual Machine. I have it on one now and it runs fine. I have an older version and I'm going to DL the RC as soon as the site will allow and see how well it runs on VM. If I like I will install and dual-boot. Holla........

 

It's kinda weird. I have about 30gb of unused space, but when I use disk management in vista, it says I can only shrink 5gb (size available shrink in mb). Mmm...can anyone help me out here?

 

A virtual machine won't give you the real experience and it will run slower. What I would do would be to use a program such as Acronis True Image or Drive Snapshot to create a full disk image of everything. Then I would install and test Windows 7 and restore the Acronis image after wards. I use Drive Snapshot though.

 

I wasn't hot on the virtual machine idea. But the disk management only allows max shrinkage of 5gb while I have 30 gb of unused space.

5GB just won't do it for Win 7.

help?

 

Vista's disk management can't shrink your partition any more because there are unmovable files that the OS cannot move. You will need to use a separate disk partitioner, like GParted.

I suggest the Virtual machine myself. It saves you from having to dual boot and it takes less work IMO. Besides VMWare's server edition or Microsoft's Virtual PC, try Sun's Virtual Box.

 

I use perfectdisk to move those system files to the front of disk.

I've just used Win 7 briefly and I like it. It's way smarter than Vista and runs pretty smoothly. The total size of installation is at 8.7GB, after windows updates (tons of drivers) it's 9.2GB. Not as small as xp but about the same as vista.

Granted, I experienced some bugs but the same can be said about a 2 years old vista (yes there is still bugs in vista). I can totally see why people are liking Win 7. I might have to make it my primary OS too...oh boy...

 

I've been searching for a decent free space consolidator for a while. I gave up and just used GParted for all my partitioning needs.

 

@ the 5 gig comment ...... thats why i said g parted i had the same issue

 

I find Easeus Partition Manager (the free version) works well.

 

I reloaded Vista and shrank the disk, it's better to do it after a fresh install of Vista. I got 70 gigs out of it when I reinstalled Vista and then did disk shrink. I was using a VM before, but personally I like a live test of it better, well really only for games. You can't game in a VM. Now I play games in the Windows 7 partition, and I love it. XD