Dual boot Installation

Dual boot installation allows you to install more than one operating systems on the same computer. for example: you can boot your PC between windows XP and windows 7 or between windows Vista and windows 7. You can select the operating system that you want to boot from the windows Boot Manager. The windows Boot Manager screen appears as shown in Figure.

                        Figure:  Operating system selection menu

Each operating system has its own partition on hard disk drive. If you install earlier versions of windows such as windows XP or Vista after installing windows 7, the installation process of the earlier windows operating system does not recognize the windows XP or vista operating system and the computer boots only earlier version of windows only.

In dual boot system, you can install windows 7 through an installation media or run the installation set up through previous version of windows that has been installed already. When you configure your computer to dual boot with windows 7, you will get a wizard to select the type of installation you want as shown in the figure.

            Figure: which type of installation do you want? Screen

Select Custom(advanced) installation type to make the system dual boot with windows 7.

To dual boot your computer between windows 7 and previous version of windows, you should assign free space in system volume partition to accommodate each operating system. To dual boot with windows 7 you should have at least 15 GB of free space in the existing volume in your computer. if you don’t have spare partitions on your computer, you can create new volumes on existing volumes using disk management console.

Window Easy Transfer

Window Easy Transfer is an application that helps you to transfer the data such as user accounts, files and folders, program data files and settings, e-mail messages, settings and contacts, photos, music and videos, Windows settings and Internet settings from your old computer to new one.

To access windows Easy transfer, click Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools -windows Easy transferThe window Easy Transfer wizard appears as shown in figure.

Figure: windows Easy Transfer Screen

Windows Easy Transfer wizard allows you to select a method to transfer data Different methods are mention below:-

Using an Easy transfer cable

Easy transfer cable is a special USB cable that used by windows easy transfer too to transfer data between computers. To use this method, you need to require an Easy Transfer cable and a UBS port on both computers.

Using Network:

To use this method both source and destination computers must be connected to the same network. When you select this method to transfer data from windows Easy Transfer wizard, it generates a transfer key on old computer and this transfer key should be entered on the new system.

Using USB flash drive or External Storage Device:

You can use USB flesh drive or external Storage device to transfer data from one computer to another through windows Easy Transfer. Before using this method, you need to make sure that the USB flash drive has enough storage space to transfer entire data.

Upgrading to windows 7

The organizations purchase new applications and install on all computers in that organization according to their needs. To get compatibility with all new applications, you should use latest operating system with latest features. Upgrading is an easiest way to get latest operating system on your PC. You can upgradingyour PC without losing user data and applications that are present with the earlier operating system.

Migrating to windows 7 from windows XP

You cannot migrate your windows XP to windows 7 directly. First you must keep your user content that you want to maintain when installing windows 7 onto computer running windows XP in a safe location. Then do clean installation of windows 7 on that PC. When the installation is completed, you can move the user content from the safe location to the computer running windows 7. This is known as Migration to windows 7 from windows XP.

There are different types of migration processes available to migrate user data from one computer to another.

Side by side migration-In this method, data is transferred from the source computer to the destination computer directly through a cross over cable or through network. It any data are lost or damaged during migration, you can go back to source computer and again transfer the data. This is used where a new PC is replaced with an old one.

Wipe and Load migration-in this method, user data is from source computer is transferred to an external storage media such as USB storage device or network share. Following this, remove the existing operating system after migrating data to external device. Then perform the clean installation system of windows 7 and import the data from external to windows 7. This is used where new OS is replaced with the old one in the same PC.

After successful migration of data to windows 7, you can delete the data from external location.

Hand on exercise

Perform the activity mentioned in lab No. 2 at the end of this chapter.

Upgrade to windows 7 from windows vista

You can upgrade your windows vista operating system to windows 7. All the applications, data settings and documents existed on the computer running windows vista will be available in windows 7 when the upgrade is finished. To upgrade windows vista to windows 7, you are advised to run windows upgrade advisor. Windows 7 is the latest operating system and there may be chance of compatibility issues. Most of the applications and hardware that work with vista will also work on windows 7. But some significant applications and hardware may not. this is known as compatibility issue. Windows upgrade is an application which inform you that whether all the software and hardware configured on the computer with vista operating system will also work with windows 7. Windows upgrade advisor generates a report to inform you that which hardware or software will cause problems with windows 7.

Hardware requirements for windows 7 and windows vista are almost same. To upgrade from windows vista to windows 7, you need at least 10 GB of free disk space on your windows vista volume.

If any problem is encountered during windows 7 installation process, windows 7 upgrade automatically restores the previous version of operating system. If you are experiencing problem at the login stage, then you can roll back your vista operating system manually.

Before upgrading to windows 7, you must decide, which edition. You can upgrade from any edition of vista to a full product copy of windows 7. For example suppose your vista edition is Home Basic, you can upgrade this either to windows 7 Home Basic, you can upgrade this either to windows 7 Home edition or ultimate edition of window 7.

Hands on exercise

Perform the activity mentioned in Lab No.3 at the end of this chapter.

Summary

In this chapter you learnt

Windows 7 operating system is available in six different editions namely windows 7 starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate.

To install windows 7 operating system on your computer, your computer should have some minimum system requirement such as 1GHz 32bit(*86) or 64bit (*64) processor, A Graphic Adapter which support Direct *9 graphics and more.

A windows 7 clean installation of windows 7 on an unused partition on your drive.

Dual boot installation allows you to install more than one operating system on the same computer.

Windows Easy Transfer/ windows Migration wizard helps you to transfer files and setting from your old computer to new computer.

When you upgrade your computer from windows vista to windows 7, you are recommended to use windows upgrade advisor to check the application and hardware compatibility.

Quiz:

Fill in the blanks

1. Window 7 starter and windows 7 Home Basic requires a minimum of MB of system memory to work properly.
2. 512MB
3. 1GB
4. 2GB
5. None of the above
6. During installation of window 7, set up wizard asks series of question that help you to configure windows 7 on your client computer.
7. Clean installation
8. Dual boot installation
9. Standard installation
10. Unattended installation
11. Is also known as custom installation.
    1. Standard installation
    2. Clean installation
    3. Dual boot installation
    4. Unattended installation
12. To dual boot with windows 7, you should have at least free volume on your client computer.
    1. 10GB
    2. 20GB
    3. 15GB
    4. 512MB
13. *64 version of Hone Basic edition of windows 7 support a maximum of GB RAM and *68 version of Home basic windows 7 supports                GB RAM.
    1. 6, 4
    2. 8,4
    3. 4,8
    4. 4,6
    5. Scenario based question
    6. A user has a home computer with a cable internet connection and no other computers on his home network. Now he wants to upgrade his windows 7 Home Premium edition to ultimate. Which of the following method he will choose to accomplish his goal?
    7. System
    8. windows PE
    9. WDS
    10. windows Anytime upgrade.
    11. Suppose you want to use WDS to perform a network installation of windows 7. Which of the following hardware devices must the computer have, assuming that you are not booting the computer from a WDS discover image?
    12. A DVD -ROM drive
    13. A PXE- compliant network adapter
    14. A USB 2.0 slot
    15. An HDIM port

Explorative work

Instructions:

1. Refer to internet, reference books or magazine to get the information.
2. Do not copy these information provided in this textbook.
3. Consult your faculty for further guidance.

Explorative questions

Q1. Write the steps to set the default operating system in the windows environment when you have configured the system for dual boot.:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Lab 1

Objective

Perform clean installation of windows 7

Materiel Requirements

Windows 7 Professional DVD

Best Practices

The Basic input/output System (BIOS) must support booting from DVD. The boot order must be set to start the booting from a DVD instead of the hard drive.

Precautions

If you are installing on existing machine take the backup of the data.

Hands on Exercise

To perform clean installing:

1. Turn on your computer and insert the installation media on your computer where you want to install windows 7.
2. Then it starts loading windows 7 on your computer automatically. The screen appear as shown in figure.

Figure  – Loading  Windows  7  Files

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