Dual boot windows advice please

ALS57

ALS57

ALS57

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24 Oct 2005
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Location
Muswell Hill London
Hi All

I have a work desktop PC running Windows 7 on a 500gb SSD. I need to keep Windows 7 to run some old textile design software and I can't risk messing up that software installation, it was very expensive.
In order to run Windows 11 on the same PC I'm about to install a new 1TB SSD and install Windows 11 on that new drive which hopefully will give me a dual boot option on start up. So the plan is, Windows 7 left alone on the old 500Gb SSD and add Windows 11 on the new 1Tb drive.

The questions I have are:
When formating the new 1tb SSD for Windows 11, what drive letter do I assign to that new drive? Will Windows 11 and Windows 7 automatically switch their respective drives to "C" from the dual boot screen?
Will I now have 2 sets of user accounts, one for each OS?
I assume I need to buy a new product key for for Windows 11?
It's crucial i can still run that textile software on Windows 7. Will the Windows 11 on it's new drive intefere with the Windows 7 drive in any way?

I would appreciate any advice please

Thanks

Al
 
Unplug the drive with 7 in it while you're installing 11, that way it won't interfere.

You most likely will need a new product key for 11, while the 7 key can be used I don't think it'll be able to keep both installs activated.

Both OSes will mark their own boot drives as C, and the other drive usually as D. They won't know what letters the other OS has marked the drives as since it's OS independent, not the drive.
 
Thanks Orcvader
If i unplug the drive with 7 in it while installing 11 will I still get this screen option when I boot the PC?


Screenshot-2023-01-01-at-14.09.38.png
 
ALS57 said:
Thanks Orcvader
If i unplug the drive with 7 in it while installing 11 will I still get this screen option when I boot the PC?


Screenshot-2023-01-01-at-14.09.38.png
Click to expand...
No, you'll need to swap between the two via the motherboard's boot manager. But if you want that screen then keep the 7 drive plugged in. Just bare in mind that means 11's boot files will be on the 7 drive, so it'll require both drives to boot into it.
 
Before doing anything, I'd image the Windows 7 SSD and save that image somewhere safe. If things go pear shaped, you can always restore that image to get the machine back to a known working state.

What's so complicated about the textile software? I'd be half tempted to try installing it on Windows 11 and use the Windows 7 image to bring across any files or settings as needed.
 
Thanks Darael, will do the backup.
The textile software just won't run on Windows 8 or 10 unless you pay for the later versions. The Windows 7 version I bought was £6000 about ten years ago! it also needs a USB security key dongle to work
 
Could you not do a full backup of the W7 OS and restore it to a Virtual Machine within Windows 11 using VM Ware or Virtual Box?
 
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ALS57 said:
Thanks Darael, will do the backup.
The textile software just won't run on Windows 8 or 10 unless you pay for the later versions. The Windows 7 version I bought was £6000 about ten years ago! it also needs a USB security key dongle to work
Click to expand...

In that case if I was you get a second pc something small form factor that can sit beside your current one on a monitor/keyboard/mouse switch of some sort. When duel boot goes wrong it goes wrong and you could be spending a lot of time fixing it.

Or as above a virtual machine.
 
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