Can Win-7 co-exist in multiboot scenarios ?

[Seeker47]

Before the predictable response from any IT Pros among you of "But You Can't Do That !" or "That is extremely inadvisable, and I would never do that !", let me just say that I've been trying this out on a secondary laptop, available for experimentation, rather than on some essential "production" rig. Even so, I've been doing multi-OS / multi-boot on various computers for many years, and generally getting away with it, with very few problems. (I drive my rigs pretty hard, so where there were some pitfalls, there is a high probability that I would have tripped over them. And I've learned a few precautions, and mistakes to avoid.) Usually, this involves a laptop, or an SFF desktop that has just one HDD, so the options were limited. But I've never tried it with any Windows later than XP. So, basically, my questions will boil down to this: Is Win-7 incapable of "playing nicely with the other children." Or are there some secret tips to making this work ? I'd like to hear of your experiences, but irrespective of that, I strongly suspect that somewhere, there are some fellow users who have successfully finessed the problems.

In some past cases, I used a boot program like System Commander, Airboot, or Acronis Selector, to mediate the boot options; a couple of these claim to insulate and protect the OSes from what they might otherwise be inclined to do to each other. But I haven't used these in the more recent instances, and maybe I should have ?

Here's what I tried. Three times, I've attempted to install 7 to a Logical partition about mid-way up the drive. (The installs went on to completion, apparently successful.) There already was an XP at the beginning of the drive, plus another OS elsewhere, but one which uses a file system that Windows does not recognize, and typically ignores as though it did not exist. (That's what I'm used to from before, and as I wanted it.) Because I saw early-on that the respective CHKDSks of XP and 7 seem to want to "fix" each other's partitions -- which I expect would be disastrous -- I removed the Drive Letter for the other in each, inside 'Disk Management'. This maneuver -- which had worked in the past re other OSes -- no longer seems to be sufficient, and the respective Auto-CHKDSK functions keep needing to be explicitly aborted with 'Hit Any Key', lest they go ahead and run. (Maybe there is some Registry hack for that ?) What I've found is that XP seems to be unaffected, and continues working in a customary and satisfactory manner, but the 7 is hopelessly hosed. It boots, and it updates via Windows Update, but it's otherwise useless. Several key app installs that I've tried bomb out, with claims that the disk structure is corrupt. (If that's the case, why does 7 still boot up at all ?) The Win-7 CHKDSK would keep running in circles at successive bootups if allowed to, reporting that the MFT is corrupt, and that the MFT is out of available space. It is totally unable to fix this problem, via the /F parameter. Even if it can coexist (somehow) perhaps Win-7 absolutely must be the first OS, at the beginning of the drive ?

My guess is that I'm missing some important details, rather than this being something that is inherently unworkable. Have any good website guides on this subject to recommend ?

On a suitable desktop system, I'd probably give 7 its own 2nd. HDD, all to itself. I was hoping to start test-driving 7, however belatedly, but so far I see very little that I like about it, and I'm looking ahead to the EOL for XP with considerable displeasure. Some reports have the impending Win-8 being so tablet oriented that businesses and the remaining-though-depleted desktop ranks are going to be screaming.

[davexnet]

I've installed Vista to a logical partition on a drive with XP in the primary partition. No problems at all.

What is all the business with Chkdsk you're referring to? Never heard of such a scenario.
I have run XP's Chkdsk on Vista's partition without problems, as far as I can see.

I don't hide the drives from each other; the downside is that XP deletes Vista volume shadow copies (including it's system
restore data) but I've learned to live with that.

[El Heggunte]

AFAIK, and FWIW, XP uses a different version of NTFS than Vista and Seven.

Therefore, I would never run XP's chkdsk on a Vista/Seven partition (and vice-versa)

[AlanHK]

This is a video forum.
This question is better asked at a forum like MSFN that focuses on ways to install and customise Windows.

As for XPs EOL, I'm still using Win2k. Everything I need works on that.

I'll probably have to upgrade to XP within a year though as apps like Firefox are dropping support for 2k as MS has changed their compilers recently to lock them out.

[El Heggunte]

@ Seeker47 --- after "rethinking" the subject...

hmmm, I guess you should create a primary FAT32 partition, and then install XP and Seven on their respective NTFS logical units in the extended partition. As there exists only one FAT32 "flavor", there should be no versioning conflicts for chkdsk between XP and Windows 7.

[ranchhand]

I'd probably give 7 its own 2nd. HDD, all to itself.

I have been doing that for years; I currently run W7 Ult and XP Pro, each installed on its own drive. Hit F8 on boot to get the boot selection screen, choose which OS I want and hit enter. Never misses, I don't use any 3rd party boot utility. Only thing is to make sure XP will run on new hardware peripherals such as newer video cards & drivers. Never had a problem so far. I can't give an opinion in creating two partitions on a single drive, never done that.

[davexnet]

AFAIK, and FWIW, XP uses a different version of NTFS than Vista and Seven.

Therefore, I would never run XP's chkdsk on a Vista/Seven partition (and vice-versa)

This is true. My point was, the 2 - 3 times I tried it,
It ran without any discernible consequences.

Never seen a situation mentioned by the OP where they wanted to fix each others partitions.

[jman98]

The easiest way to test a new version of Windows is to just use a virtual machine. VMware has some very good free technology available but there are other options. I'm not real sold on what most of you are doing, but those are not my machines so you can do what you want.

Win 7 is fine. I'm skeptical about Win 8 and expect it to mostly fail. Industry writers have consistently failed to predict the future and I think most of them are underestimating how badly Win 8 will likely be received. I've been hearing for 10 years now that "the desktop is dead" yet somehow it survives.

[Hoser Rob]

I'd definitely second trying different forums, starting with the Microsoft tech support site.

However, I've heard about a lot of difficulties trying to run xp and 7 as dual boot, and I wouldn't necessarily blame 7. I've installed dual boot 7 and Ubuntu twice in the last month or so. No problems except with the first, which had a stupid HP bloatware partition at the other end of the HD from the system partition. After I yanked that (no loss) and repartitioned, no problem.

So I'm more inclined to blame xp than 7.

I must admit, though, I don't quite understand why it's so difficult to have xp and 7 ... both Microsoft products ... run as dual boot, whereas 7 and Linux dual boot just fine.

Apparently win 8 doesn't like dual boot at all. Not that I particularly think it won't work well in general, I just don't like the direction they're going.

Actually I'm not so sure win 8 is going to fail, though they're taking a big bet here. I'm not much interested in mobile computing at this point, but they are the hot thing now. People are buying a new one every year or two, whereas lost people don't replace their laptop/desktop until it breaks down.

Plus, microsoft is seriously into enterprise stuff these days and those tablets are a big part of that strategy. I know a couple of IT support people who have to give clients guest status on their work network with their mobiles. The win8 tablets have proper encryption. Unlike any of the others.

I may have largely abandoned Windows at this point but that doesn't mean I think Microsoft is totally incompetent.

[El Heggunte]

......

I must admit, though, I don't quite understand why it's so difficult to have xp and 7 ... both Microsoft products ... run as dual boot, whereas 7 and Linux dual boot just fine.

Well, Microsoft does want Windows XP to die, to begin with.

Fortunately, Windows XP is very difficult to kill.

[Seeker47]

The easiest way to test a new version of Windows is to just use a virtual machine. VMware has some very good free technology available but there are other options. I'm not real sold on what most of you are doing, but those are not my machines so you can do what you want.

Win 7 is fine. I'm skeptical about Win 8 and expect it to mostly fail. Industry writers have consistently failed to predict the future and I think most of them are underestimating how badly Win 8 will likely be received. I've been hearing for 10 years now that "the desktop is dead" yet somehow it survives.

In the right situation I'd agree with that, but from what I've seen (actual demos) and read you need some fairly muscular iron to do VM well, without much noticeable performance penalty. And I don't presently have anything here more powerful than late 2009 model dual-core, which might not be good enough, although some of it could accommodate up to 8G of RAM and run a 64 bit OS version.

In the back of my mind I sort of knew about the later partitioning scheme Win-7 may use (can't recall the name of it just now), and it's not too surprising that they would mess around with the NTFS spec again. Primary partition required, no more using Logicals ? Yeah, I'd considered that possibility too.

The sort of thing I've been hearing about 8 is that it does away with right-click context menus entirely (WTF !), because you don't need them for a tablet ? And you're quite right about the continuing, hasty obits for desktop systems. I'm not buying that either.

Have you not found more apps than you expected -- including video apps -- which turned out to be incompatible with 7 ? "Compatibility Mode" or otherwise ?

While this certainly is a video site, this is the all-things-Computer section, and I've seen plenty of good info and advice here in the past. If a query was beyond the ken of the knowledgeable folks here, I'd take it to a different site, but it looks like this is not that advanced a topic.

[Cornucopia]

Another way to get around boot problems is HOT-SWAPPABLE boot drives.

In a sense, each boot drive gets a clean install of the OS & corresponding apps. Each has their own "sandbox" and don't even know of the existence of any of the other OS(es). Being physical drives, you don't have partition problems or access time limitations. Being hot-swapped, the other drive(s) are literally NOT PRESENT and can't be affected by anything the OS does.
In this scenario, I recommend separate Data drives.

Only downside is slighlty longer reboot-to-other-OS times. If that is really such a problem, VM is the way to go.
Worked on rig like this for a year at a previous post house and never had a single problem, plus the OS stayed much cleaner, leaner!

Just a suggestion,

Scott

edit: Other downside is the cost of hot-swap hardware, which isn't that much...

[Nelson37]

Since no one else has said it, I will. It's a bad idea, and sooner or later it will bite you in the ass, hard.

Boot-partition managers, in my experience, nearly always eventually have a catastrophic failure. Absolutely forbidden by the guy who trained me, unless in some emergency, and then under no circumstances would any warranty of any kind be offered with such an installation. They are a problem waiting to happen.

There are OLD pc techs, and there are BOLD pc techs. There are no OLD, BOLD pc techs. Use two separate drives, or pick an OS to use, or get multiple PCs.

[epsilonalpha]

You can use something like easybcd. Which worked pretty well when I tried in the past.

[fritzi93]

Dual-booting from two separate physical drives should pose no *serious* problem. I had only one niggling problem when I did it, and that was sporadic difficulty in booting to XP. When I disconnected the Vista drive, no problem at all. So I can relate to what Scott says about hot-swapping.

However, a VM is much better IMO. In VMware, you allocate resources (RAM, cores) to the VM. Make it enough to run the OS as if it was a separate computer. Yeah, it works best with a beast of a machine with gobs of extra RAM. But what you allocate is just its maximum "allowance"; when the host OS isn't under heavy load, it doesn't matter, or vice-versa. And when you turn off the VM, everything is again available to the host OS. I should think a dual-core CPU and, oh, 3-4 GB of RAM would be, if not ideal, at least doable.

[ranchhand]

Fritzi: Come to think on it, I added a backup drive dedicated for backups only and sometimes the F8 gets fussy so I had the same problem as you. If I unplug the BU drive everything works fine. Interesting. Must be a bug in the BIOS software.

[hello_hello]

Anything helpful here regarding chkntfs?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/160963

If nothing else, you may be able to get chkdsk to ignore the "other" partition.

[Seeker47]

Anything helpful here regarding chkntfs?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/160963

If nothing else, you may be able to get chkdsk to ignore the "other" partition.

That sounded interesting (and vaguely familiar), BUT . . .

from your link:

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition (32-bit x86)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32-bit x86)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition


No mention of XP or anything later. I've got a feeling that CHKNTFS will be nowhere to be found in 7, much as MS stopped including several .DLLs whose absence some attempted app installs will balk over.

[El Heggunte]

FWIW, my copy of Windows XP Pro does have a chkntfs.exe

[C:\]
=>chkntfs /?
Displays or modifies the checking of disk at boot time.

CHKNTFS volume [...]
CHKNTFS /D
CHKNTFS /T[:time]
CHKNTFS /X volume [...]
CHKNTFS /C volume [...]

  volume         Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
                 mount point, or volume name.
  /D             Restores the machine to the default behavior; all drives are
                 checked at boot time and chkdsk is run on those that are
                 dirty.
  /T:time        Changes the AUTOCHK initiation countdown time to the
                 specified amount of time in seconds.  If time is not
                 specified, displays the current setting.
  /X             Excludes a drive from the default boot-time check.  Excluded
                 drives are not accumulated between command invocations.
  /C             Schedules a drive to be checked at boot time; chkdsk will run
                 if the drive is dirty.

If no switches are specified, CHKNTFS will display if the specified drive is
dirty or scheduled to be checked on next reboot.

[Gramps]

You could also run Windows XP as a virtual machine inside Windows 7 via XP Mode. It is a free download from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

That is what I use for certain apps that simply won't work under Windows 7.