Dual booting

Pyroblaze · 13 Jan 2009 at 07:35

I'm wondering if someone could tell me a way of dual booting when an OS is already installed. I'm pretty sure i've seen somewhere mention before that you can shrink a partition and then install another OS in a new partition. It's not something i've done before so would need a dummies explanation if it's easy enough to explain.

The idea behind it is that Fallout 3 won't run on W7 for me at all, so i would like to create another small partition and install vista there just for FO3 and perhaps any other apps that end up not working on W7.

linktoinsanity · 13 Jan 2009 at 15:37

You shouldn't really be running any beta OS only anyway without a fully released OS to fall back on such as Vista or XP. I think Windows 7 has a shrink tool like vista does. Go into Control Panel, classic, administrative tools, Computer Management, Disk Management. Then right-click on the partition you want to shrink and choose shrink volume. You can then change the size. Click OK through the boxes, making sure that the space leaves some free on your original partition for swap files etc, restart and you're done. Note that this is instructions for Vista, so 7 may have some minor alterations, but this shouold give you a start...

RickR WIN-TEAM · 13 Jan 2009 at 21:14

Pyroblaze, My name is Rick and I work with the Windows Outreach Team, and read your question. There is a really handy guide over at the Lifehacker site that I think may be able to help you out; http://lifehacker.com/5126781/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-with-xp-or-vista make sure you back up your current HD just in case something happens.
Good luck
Rick Windows Outreach Team

Pyroblaze · 13 Jan 2009 at 21:28

Thanks guys, that explains it easily enough for me and that guide is dead handy Rick.

@Matt, the PC was getting reformatted around the time W7 came out anyway, so i opted to participate in that instead. This is just a gaming PC so it doesn't matter if any data gets lost.