You will need to download the Windows 8 Developer ISO disk image and burn it to a DVD or put it on a USB device. Here is the link for the ISO: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/. You can save it in the Downloads folder until later in the tutorial where we will demonstrate how to create the disk image and boot it.

Create a hard drive partition of at least 20GB. Open the disk management console in Windows 7 by going to the start menu and typing in “run” and press Enter. Type “diskmgmt.msc” in the Open field and click OK.

This opens the console. To create a new partition, right-click on a Healthy Logical Drive and select Shrink Volume. Enter the amount of space for the partition in MB. So, enter 20000. This will actually give you 19.53 GB and therefore you may want to allocate 21-30GB for the partition to ensure functionality. On the PC used in this demonstration, entering 20000MB worked out fine in the end. It is your call.

You can see from the screenshot below that a new partition exists for the Windows 8 Developer Preview. Now it must be formatted and given a name.

Right-click the empty partition and choose “New Simple Volume”. The Wizard will launch and you will be prompted to enter the amount of unallocated space to use. Use the original default to avoid wasting any space. You will be asked to assign a drive letter. Do so and click Next. The following window will present and the only thing you have to do is enter the Volume label, or name of the partition. Click Next.

This will format the partition and you are now ready to install Windows 8 Developer Preview.

You should have downloaded the copy of the Windows 8 Preview by now. You will have to burn the ISO disk image to a DVD or USB device. Right-click the ISO disk image and select “Burn to Disk” and choose the disk for burning. Restart your computer and configure to boot from the appropriate source as the primary boot option in the BIOS. When booting from a DVD, you should see “press any key to boot from CD or DVD”. Press any key immediately. It will take just a moment, but the installation will begin.

Simply follow all of the steps to install. Accept the license agreement and choose custom installation. Select the appropriate partition created earlier or you will erase all data on other hard drives and partitions. It may take some time for the installation to complete. This is normal. Wait patiently. It is worth it.
The installation will commence and you will be asked to name the PC. After this, you will be prompted to choose express settings or custom settings. You can log into the computer using a Windows Live ID or create a local account.
Restart the computer after logging on so that the default returns to Windows 7. Reconfigure the BIOS and the next time you log on, you have the option between the two operating systems.

There it is! Now you are ready to preview Windows 8 without virtualization. Explore and have fun.

So let’s assume that you read up on dual booting, chose a second operating system that extended your computing capabilities, and pulled the trigger. Congratulations! Your system now has the potential to carry you much further, and your software options are incredible. You spend some time enjoying the new operating system, customizing it, choosing new programs, and after some time, decide you want to hop back onto your old system. You close everything up, tell your system to reboot and… it jumps right back into the new operating system without asking where you wanted it to go.

This frustrating scenario is not at all unfamiliar to those who decide to dual boot. Fortunately, there is a solution for nearly every possible configuration and installation order between Windows and Linux versions and distributions. This how-to will help you get the bootmenu for each possible option back, giving you access to the original operating system if it is accidentally blocked out by the second OS.

The process does require you to have a physical copy of an installation disk for whichever operating system you are trying to get access to. If you installed Ubuntu as your second operating system and it blocked you from Vista, you need a Vista disk. If, for some reason, you installed XP and lost Ubuntu, you will need an Ubuntu installation disk for the specific release you are trying to get to.

Also, this how-to looks specifically at how to restore access to Ubuntu and may not be universally applicable to Linux distributions. It should, however, serve as a solid starting point, and many other distros follow the same process.

The most common scenario, restoring Windows Vista or 7, is one of the easiest. Run the installation CD at startup, and after the location options select Repair Your Computer. Unselect your installation if the system locates it, and then open Command Prompt. Type in:

bootrec.exe /fixboot

Press enter, then type:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

Close all windows, do a restart, and your Vista/7 bootloader should appear.

Those restoring XP have it even easier. Insert the install CD, allow it to proceed, then type r when it asks if you are repairing rather than installing. This brings up a command line, in which you should type, pressing enter between lines:

fixboot
fixmbr
exit

Finally, those restoring Ubuntu or a similar Linux system need to start by identifying the drive their system is installed on. From the terminal on an install disk, type:

From the information that this calls, identify the drive that holds the Linux system, such as /dev/sda2. Next, substituting in your own drive in place of sda2:

sudo mkdir /media/sda2
sudo mount /dev/sda2 /media/sda2
sudo grub-install –root-director=/media/sda2 /dev/sda

While not comprehensive enough to cover absolutely every possible configuration you may have, these simple steps can help most people get back their original bootloader. If you follow these steps and find you lose the loader from the second operating system, just follow the same steps for the second. Good luck!

I got it in the form of the Illustrated Dual Boot site. As the name suggests, the site is packed with tutorials to assist people with dual-booting their computer to run both Windows and Ubuntu. The tutorials help install Ubuntu versions right from Gutsy Gibbon to Karmic Koala (the upcoming release). For Windows versions, there are installation tutorials for everything from Windows 98 to Windows7.

What makes the Illustrated Dual Boot site so good? It’s the fact that the tutorials are really well written. Any tutorial you choose has exactly what you need to get a dual-boot system up and running, right from beginning to end. Within the tutorial is some information on the tools required for the dual-boot as well as some basic checks before you begin.

Every step within a tutorial is illustrated. This is extremely important because often a step might not make much sense but if you can actually see how it takes place, it becomes easier to do it yourself. Some steps are also accompanied by possible errors you might encounter and how to solve them, another necessity for an installation.

I used the Jaunty Jackalope / Windows7 Graphical Installation ‘C’ tutorial to successfully dual-boot Jaunty and Windows XP. The clear instructions in simple language were easy to understand and implement with no problems whatsoever.

Tech experts probably don’t need someone to tell them how to set up a dual-boot on a machine. However, the vast majority of people using computers are not tech-savvy and having a resource like the Illustrated Dual Boot site reduces their dependence on others to do things for them. This site is also perfect for people who want to take the plunge into Linux but are being held back by the fear of having to install their own OS.

Have you used the Illustrated Dual Boot site anytime? Do you know of any similar resources? What do you think of computer novices using online tutorials to install an OS? Let me know in the comments.

I first tried editing the boot.ini but did not find an entry for Vista in there. After searching the internet for about half an hour I discovered many forum entries about the problem that I faced and finally a link to a program called Windows Vista Boot Pro, a freeware which displays the boot information in Windows XP and the option to edit the entries.

The first tab of the Vista Boot Pro displays the boot information that are stored in BCD Store. My previous assumption proved correct because there was no drive assigned to my Vista operating system which was strange. I switched to the Manage Os Entries and created a new entry for Vista with the correct drive letter. I also deleted the old non-working one.

After that I rebooted the machine and was able to load Vista without problems. I hope that everyone who encounters Vista boot problems will find this tool as well. As Borat would put it: It is nice..

I started with the installation of Windows Vista because other users told me that this would be the best way to install both systems. Grub, the Linux bootloader would be installed last this way and pick up all three operating systems, exactly the way I wanted it to be. During the installation of Windows Vista I realized that Vista is still not able to read my SATA drives without additonal drivers. I had this problem back when I was installing Windows XP and hoped that it would be solved in Vista.

I had to go back to Windows XP and download the SATA drivers from my motherboard manufacturer Asus and put them on a CD. I found out later that it would have been possible to add them to a hard drive or usb device as well. I had to load the drivers and was able to continue with the installation which took very long, and I mean long. Seemed like an hour before Vista was installed. Had not much time to play around because I still needed to install Kubuntu as well on the same drive.

I was prepared and created a Kubuntu CD before the Vista installation. A nice feature is that it functions as a live cd and installation cd at once. It booted fast into the gui and I had the chance to play around a little bit. I was looking for gparted, the partitioner that I intended to use but it was not there. Kubuntu had QTParted installed, I guess it does not make much of a difference.

I created a EXT3 partition of 30 gigabytes and a Linux Swap partition of 1 gigabyte. Kubuntu has a installation shortcut on its desktop, I double-clicked it and the installation started. Unfortunately the manual selection of the partitions failed and I had to choose that the partition would be automatically resized.

I’m still waiting that the resizing of the partition finds an end and the installation of Kubuntu can begin. Would say it took almost an hour until now and there is no end in sight because I do not see a progress bar or a clock that is running down.

If everything works out fine I will begin tomorrow to play around with Vista and Kubuntu and write about my first day experience with both systems. If you know of a solution for the problem that I can’t install Kubuntu manually let me know please.

I don’t advise the switch to Vista but many will do it anyway, that’s why I will be installing Vista to be able to write articles about Vista as well. I know that some readers would love to switch to Linux as well, probably for the same reasons I’m making the switch. I hope that many find the courage for this step and my articles about switching to Linux hopefully show them that switching is indeed easy.

I decided to install Ubuntu on a new external hard drive that I will purchase. This has some advantages: First, I do not need to partition the hard drives that are already installed on my computer which means I don’t have to fear that I will be loosing data in the process. A minor disadvantage is that there will be no default bootloader that gives me the choice of the operating system, I probably have to switch information in bios to start the operating system I want.

Having said that I compiled a list of applications that I need to find and install in Ubuntu to be able to work with it. Please note that this list is not complete, I tried to add only essential applications. If you know such a tool exists in Linux let me know, would be glad if some of you could help me get it going.

• FTP Client
• True Crypt
• Browser (Firefox)
• Email Client (Thunderbird)
• Word Processing (Open Office)
• Image Processing (GIMP)
• Video Player like VLC
• Music Player like Winamp
• Binary News Reader like Newzbin
• Bittorrent Client (like Bitcomet)

I will also have to do some research if some programs I use on a daily basis like Skype, Teamspeak and Rivatuner can be run.

I’m pretty sure that I will find equivalent tools and I have decided to install Ubuntu without searching for them. I will do that once Ubuntu is up and running.

If you have something that you would like to add let me know. Are you also considering switching to Linux and need a certain tool ? Maybe we can figure it out together.

Looks like Christmas for a guy like me who wanted to get all three operating systems together on one computer. You need of course a CD / DVD with Ubuntu, Windows Vista and XP. Ubuntu can be downloaded freely and burned to a CD, you need to possess or purchase XP and Vista. I would not recommend to use a release candidate of Vista for this triple boot system, it could ruin everything when the trial period runs out.

The author suggests to completely wipe the hard drive that you want to install the operating systems on – I think it is the best approach next to using a new hard drive for this. Dariks Boot and Nuke is a freeware tool that is able to wipe your disk, make sure you select the right one before you proceed. Better yet, disconnect all drives that should not take harm in any way. Please note that you could also only do a quick format or no format at all and install the operating systems. Partitioning will destroy most data on the drive nevertheless.
The installation starts with Ubuntu and the partitioning of the hard drive from within the installation of Ubuntu. Everything is explained in great detail including screenshots of every step, impossible to make something wrong here if you read the instructions carefully.

After that he walks you through the XP and Vista installation. Everything is detailed just like the Ubuntu installation guide.

Most users should be happy with this setup. Someone pointed out that you could also start with XP, install Vista afterwards and finally Ubuntu to use the Bootloader of Ubuntu instead of the Windows one.

All you need is a Windows Boot disk, a Ubuntu dvd and some time at hand. You should make sure that you did a backup of all important files on your machine because you probably need to partition the hard drive to make some space for the linux operating system. The process is explained in great detail, one guy is asking all sorts of questions that beginners probably would be asking as well and the other guy is answering them in great detail.

First, download vista from the official microsoft website and get your key. Second, get the gparted live cd from sourceforge. Use gparted to create a second primary partition. Vista apparently needs a primary partition and wont install on others. Make sure you assign enough disk space to that partition, recommended is at least 20 Gigabyte of Hard Disk space.

If everything works out you now have a second primary partition which is ready for windows vista. Reboot your machine and load Windows Xp once again. Now run the windows vista setup again and chose your newly created partition as the target for the operating system.

Once the installation is finished you should see a bootup manager after turning on your computer.

The installation should be similar if you are running linux instead of xp. Just use the live cd and create a primary partition and install vista. (boot and setup from burned dvd if you are running linux).

source: lifehacker