How To Dual Boot Windows 8 With Windows 7 - A Step By Step Tutorial ~ Blog O'Nerd

Hello everyone. How are you doing? Fine I guess. Today I am going to post a tutorial about installing Windows 8 along side windows 7 and how to dual-boot. As you may know, Microsoft released Windows 8 developer preview a few month ago and Windows 8 Consumer Preview on 29th February. Both these builds are available to download for free from Microsoft Website. If you are eager to try Windows 8 before its actual final release, you can download and try Windows 8 right now.

Okay so let me begin the tutorial here.

How to Install Windows 8 along-side Windows 7/Vista and Dual-Boot?

Note - This tutorial will work with any build of Windows 8. You can install Windows Developer Preview, Windows 8 Consumer Preview, and Windows 8 Final build using this tutorial.

Step 1
Checking if your computer can run Windows 8
If your computer can run Windows 7 without any problems, then it can run Windows 8 too.

Here are the System Requirements for Windows 8

Processor: 1 Gigahertz (GHz) or faster
RAM: 1 Gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device or higher

Step 2
Downloading Windows 8

Download Windows 8 Consumer Preview from Here.
You can also try Windows 8 developer preview but the evacuation period of developer preview ends on 8th March so it is not worth installing just for a few days. So until the download finishes, let's move to the next step.

Step 3
Creating a new Partition

Now we are going to create a new partition for Windows 8.
To create a new partition, go to Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Storage - Disk Management (Local).
Once in Disk Management, you can see the status of your current hard disk(s). If you have 20 GB of unallocated space or Free Space, right-click on it and click create a new simple volume.
If you don't have any unallocated space, you need to shrink a Volume. So select a Partition on which you have the most free space, and right-click on it. Now select Shrink Volume.

Now enter the amount in MB to shrink. We want 20 GBs so we will enter 21504 MB. 21504 MB means 21 GB, but the actual size of the partition may differ after formatting it. So we will give more than 20 GB space.

Alright, after you have shrunken down a volume, you now have 21 GBs of free space. So you can create a new Partition now. So right-click on the Free-Space, and click Create a New Simple Volume. Now click next, next again, assign a drive letter to the new volume as desired, click next.
Now on the next screen, select NTFS as File System (already selected by default), keep the allocation unit size to default, give a label to the new volume - for example, Windows 8 or simply erase the name if you do not wish to give a name to the new volume.

Now make sure the "Perform a quick Format" check-box is selected. Now click next.
Confirm the summary displayed and click Finish.
Now you have a new volume on which Windows 8 can be installed. Let's move to the next step.

Step 4
Creating the Windows 8 installation media

After the Windows 8 consumer preview ISO has finished downloading, you can create a installation media from which you can install Windows 8.
You have two choices. Create a new DVD, or create a bootable Flash drive/Pen Drive/USB key. In my opinion, you should choose the second option, which is more economical at this point. Because this is not the actual Windows 8, it is just a preview, so why waste a DVD if you can create a bootable flash drive, and even use it later after installing Windows 8. Your choice though.

Step 4.a
Creating a bootable DVD

If you choose to create a bootable DVD, just burn the ISO to a blank DVD using any disk burning utility like Nero, Power ISO or Ultra ISO. After the burn process finishes, you can move to the next step.

Step 4.b
Creating a bootable Flash Drive/Pen Drive/USB Key

If you wish to create a bootable USB media, you need to download Windows 7 USB/DVD creator tool. To download, click Here (size - 2.60 MB).
Note - To run this utility, you need to have .Net Framework 2.0 or greater installed on your computer.
The file you will download is in .ZIP format. So extract it to a folder using any archiver like WinZIP or WinRAR or similar utility.
After you extract the file, run it and install it.
After the installation finishes, launch the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool from desktop or start menu.
Now browse to the Windows 8 ISO file you downloaded earlier and select it. Click Next.

Now select USB device.

Now from the drop-down list, select your Flash-drive. Note that the USB drive should be atleast 4 GB or larger in size.

Now click Begin copying. The tool now begins creating the bootable USB pen drive. It will take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

Step 6
Installing Windows 8

So finally the Windows 8 installation step comes. To begin the installation, reboot your computer.
Before you can boot from the installation media (DVD or USB) you need to set boot order first.
So when your computer boots up and shows motherboard manufacturer's logo, press the shown key to enter your computer's BIOS settings. The key normally is F2 or Del.
Once in the BIOS settings, find something like boot order. Note that different BIOS have different option. You need to find something like boot order there.
Now set your computer's DVD drive as the first boot device.
If you created USB bootable media, find the option that says - Boot USB device first.
Now save the settings and exit from the BIOS. Now your computer will reboot.
Now when it says press any key to boot from the DVD, press any key to enter Windows 8 setup.

Step 7
Now the Windows 8 installer starts. The Windows 8 setup is very similar to Windows 7. So you will find it familiar.

Now select the language, and click Install Now.
Now when asked, click Custom Installation.
Now you will see the list of your partitions. See the partition you created earlier? This is where we will install Windows 8. So select the partition, and click format. Click Yes or OK when it asks you really want to format the volume.
Once the format process completes, click Next and Windows 8 will start installing.
Wait for the installation process to finish. It will not take more that 15 or 20 minutes.
After the Windows 8 installation finishes, it will reboot once or twice. And you will see the Windows 8 Welcome screen. But wait, we have created dual-boot didn't we? So it will first show you the installed operating systems under Choose Operating System.
Select the operating system you wish to boot into and it will boot Windows 8 or Windows 7 - whichever you choose. Note that if you choose windows 7, it will reboot your computer and then boot into Windows 7.

Picture source - The Internet

Step 8
Making Windows 7 default operating system.

Now if you want to make Windows 7 the default operating system, you can select Change defaults or Choose other options in the Choose an operating system window. Now you can set Windows 7 as the default operating system there.
When you want to boot into windows 8, you need to choose Windows 8 from the list while booting up your computer.

Okay so now you have installed Windows 8 along with Windows 7. Enjoy Windows 8 until the evacuation period expires and wait for the final release. Let me know of any problems and your expirienes with Windows 8.

Will be back with new posts, until then, Bye.