VHD Boot to Windows 10 Technical Preview Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Windows 8
There are a number of ways to try out
the new operating systems. You can run it either on a separate spare
box sitting around in your home of office, or as a virtual machine
inside your current system, or dual-boot side-by-side with your primary
OS. The best way of all, at least seems to me, is to use the combination
of the virtual machine and dual-boat setup to build a native VHD boot
side by side with any current system you use, Windows 7 or Windows 8.
Why? because it doesn’t compromise on anything you are currently using
while still fully consuming all the computer power you have.
So, even though the process is almost the same as in Windows 8, let’s go over it again to see how we can make it.
Step 1: Get and prepare your own bootable installation media
First, head straight over to Windows Insider Program, sign it up, and download the ISO file that you can use to install the preview.
Then, if you are going to use USB drive, you can use this free portable tool called Rufus to build your own bootable Windows 10 Technical Preview installation USB drive.
Step 2: Prepare your VHD file
You can do so straight from Disk Management GUI.
1. Click on Action from the top menu, and select Create VHD.
2. Specify the location and the size of the VHD file. Be sure you have enough free space left in that drive.
3. Click OK to start. You will have the brand new VHD file ready a few minutes later.
Step 3: Boot to the bootable Windows 10 media
Follow the installation wizard appearing on the screen, choose Custom: Install Windows Only at a screen asking Which type of installation do you want?
At next screen where it asks which partition to install the operating system, instead of picking one listed on the screen, hit Shift+F10 to open a Command Prompt window, and type the Diskpart command to attach and mount the VHD file we created previously.
Diskpart:>select vdisk file=e:\vms\win10tp.vhd Diskpart:>attach vdisk
Make sure to swap out the location and file name of the VHD file with your own.
Close
out the Command Prompt window, refresh the partition list, and select
the VHD one on the list, and go Next to carry on the installation.
Once
the installation process finished and the computer rebooted, which
happened to me only a few minutes later, you automatically get prompted
to this awesome bootload that provides you the choice of both Windows 10
Preview and Windows 7/8, whichever you are using as your primary OS.
Now, let’s rock.
