Are you in situation that you have installed Windows 7 and then realized that many programs yet are not compatible with? Of course, solution is to have 2 operating systems on same machine. This tutorial helps you to install Windows XP when you have one Windows 7 already installed.
What is necessary to have before installation? Windows XP installation disk and EasyBCD program which you can also download when you install XP.
Important: If you install XP on some other hard drive, skip step 1.
- In Windows7, go “Control Panel->Administrative tools->Computer Management->Disk Management”. There you have to make space for your XP partition. Right click on partition you want to shrink and choose option Shrink volume. You’ll get the window in which you have to choose for how much you want to reduce current partition. That space will be the space for your Windows XP, and the Windows 7 partition will be reduced for that amount. When you enter the number, click on Shrink button. After this, in Disk Management window there will be new space, marked as Unallocated. Right click on that volume and choose New Simple Partition. The wizard will guide you through simple process where you choose size of partition. You type all amount of MB offered and press “Next”. Then you have to choose the letter for the new partition, and also press “Next”. In the next window, you have to enter the name for new partition, and choose Format this volume with the following settings, mark “Perform a quick format”, and click “Next”. After that click Finish, and you have new partition prepared for the process of installation Windows XP.
- Insert installation disk for Windows XP and restart your computer. You’ll get the empty screen (usually black) and be prompted to press any key to continue (Look at the screenshot). If this doesn’t happens check if CD/DVD drive is first in the boot order in BIOS.
- You get welcome page. Press Enter.
- Press F8 to accept license conditions.
- You’ll get the screen where you have to select the partition for Windows XP. Select partition (using arrow keys) you previously made in step 1, or if you have another drive
select partition for that drive. The press Enter.
- After this, installation begins. When it finishes, you’ll get a few windows more where you make selections of language settings and similar like that. After that, installation is finished but you must change boot order.
- To accomplish this, download and install .Net Framework 2.0 (32-bit) version or .Net Framework 2.0 (64-bit) version and EasyBCD for your 32-bit or 64-bit Windows XP.
- Open EasyBCD program and click on “Add/Remove Entries” button which you can find on the left side of the program window.
- Bottom right, under Add an Entry, for the name type Windows XP. The text you type will be displayed in Boot Manager. For the Type choose Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3. Then click on Add Entry button. In the upper right, Windows XP will be displayed. Click on “Save” button in the right upper corner.
- From the left side of EasyBCD choose Manage Bootloader.
- In the upper right part select Reinstall the Vista Bootloader. After this, click on Write MBR.
- Close EasyBCD.
After this, when you restart the computer, you’ll get two options - to
boot from Windows 7 or Windows XP. Use
arrow keys and Enter button to select which operating system you want to start.