Windows 7/10 Dual Boot

[exp101]

A few have asked about setting up their machines to support both W7 and W10 OS. Since the free W10 upgrade offer expires on July 29, I decided the time was right for me to do it now -- not from any particular longing for W10, but because I didn't want to get too far out of sync with Microsoft's grand designs. Part and parcel to this is our experience that it's nearly impossible to stay connected to GCM games running W10.

Anyway, Swinder successfully worked through this with his machine sometime ago and provided advice to me in getting mine set up. For those interested, here are the basic steps we followed. BTW, you'll need a separate HDD to house your W7 system. In my case, I had my original, smaller SSD (240G) still on my machine and virtually unused after acquiring a new 480G SSD about a year ago after taking advantage of a great Newegg sale.

Here's what we did:
1. Backup the W7 activation using this tool: http://joshcellsoftwares.com/products/a ... nsmanager/. Store those activation files somewhere external (USB, network, external HD, or some such);
2. Shutdown and disconnect the HD that will ultimately be used for W7 from the computer (physically disconnect the SATA cable);
3. Boot W7;
4. Allow W7 to upgrade to W10 (this will take some time);
5. Verify that W10 seems to be working (test run some of your software, etc.);
6. Shutdown, physically disconnect the HDD that now houses W10. Connect the W7 HDD to sata port 1 (leaving sata 0 port empty);
7. Using DVD/CD media, re-install clean W7 onto the now-connected HDD. Explicitly uncheck and skip anything that talks about activating W7 automatically, putting in a CD key, or otherwise attempts to activate W7 at this time;
8. Install all the drivers for W7 and get this OS generally working* (don't worry yet about installing SOWGB yet). Make sure you don't have any "unknown devices" in Device Manager. This will involve getting the MB drivers, video card, network, and many other drivers installed;
9. Shutdown. Plug in the new W10 HDD now also (in sata port 0), so both HDD's will be connected. Reboot.
10. This should just boot W10. You won't see any option for W7 (yet);
11. Verify W10 still works normally;
12. Execute the necessary commands to rebuild the boot configuration so that your machine will see both W7 and W10. See these links:
-http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixthepro ... indows.htm
-http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8 ... dows-8.htm (I used method 3)
13. Now when you boot you'll see a blue menu screen right after the bios loads giving you the choice between running W7 or W10;
14. Go back to the tool described in Step 1, and reactivate your W7 license.

*The biggest time-consumer in the whole process is bringing your clean W7 install up to speed with the bazillion Windows Updates that have accumulated. Fortunately, MS recently released a process that streamlines this: http://www.howtogeek.com/255435/how-to- ... ce-rollup/

Good luck if you decide to take the plunge with this process. Allow yourself a day or two to work through issues, install drivers, and complete the delightful W7 update experience. Naturally, this process comes with no warranties, express or implied, that it will all work smoothly for you. Proceed at your own risk. :huh: