How To Dual Boot Windows XP and Windows 7 with XP installed first.

If you already have Windows XP installed on the computer and you're happy with it, but you want to give Windows 7 to try, then dual booting Windows XP and 7 is for you.  Using the Windows 7 software you can upgrade Windows Vista to Windows 7, but you can't upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7. So if you have Windows XP installed and you're happy with it, and you think you're ready to give Windows 7 a try, then dual boot XP & 7 is your best bet. Dual booting Windows XP and 7 will allow you to switch back and forth between the two operating systems in case you have programs that run well in XP, but may not run in Windows 7.

How to dual boot Windows XP and Windows 7 with XP installed first: First off make sure to back up all your important data files, photos, music files, videos and all your files that cannot be replaced. Backing up your data files onto a external hard drive is the safest way to back up your data files, but if you have a second internal hard drive you can move your files to the second internal hard drive.

Okay, all your data files are backed up now you're ready to install Windows 7 onto your Windows XP computer.

Step 1.

You're going to need to shrink Windows XP partition on the hard drive to create enough for Windows 7 home premium. You'll need about half your hard drive cleared free to install Windows 7 on it. So what you have a 100 GB hard drive, clear off about 50 GB of free space to install Windows 7. There are two easy methods for doing this -- using the software GPartEd Live CD and or DISKPART utility (the easiest) on the Windows 7 DVD.

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