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The May 5th launch date for the Windows 7 RC has come and gone, and amazingly, it went off without a hitch. The download servers held up, product keys have been free flowing, and Microsoft is once again proving to the world that they have what it takes to be the number one OS. To veteran Maximum PC readers, downloading and installing the new Windows 7 RC is a piece of cake, and they have probably been up and running for days. For newcomers however, the process can be a bit overwhelming. In the following guide, we will review the steps from start to finish on how to get the Windows 7 Release Candidate up and running in less than an hour. The entire process is free, and the only risk involved is your time, and the possibility of developing an unnatural love affair with an operating system that you’re wife probably won’t understand.
Read on to learn how to setup a dual boot with your old OS, upgrade from Vista, or even just make a plain old clean install.
A PC with the following Minimum Specs:
CDBurnerXP (Works in XP or Vista) or other DVD ISO burning software (Free)
Windows 7 RC 32 Bit or 64 Bit (Free)
A Windows Live Account (Free)
The first thing you will need to do is navigate on over to the Windows 7 RC download page, and grab yourself the updated ISO. You will notice that it will give the option of picking either the 32 or 64 Bit version of the OS. As with Vista x64, the future is in 64 Bit computing, but you need to have compatible hardware, and the advantages don’t amount to much if you have less than 4 gigs of ram. If your not sure if your processor is 64 bit or not, feel free to take the test by downloading and running GRC’s SecureAble.
Navigate to the bottom of the page, select your edition, then hit GO.
Next you will be asked to enter your Windows Live account information, if you don’t have one, not to worry, you can create it for free. After signing up, or signing in, you will be presented with your Windows 7 product key. If you planning on installing more than one copy of Windows 7, or even a mixture of 32 bit and 64 bit, don’t worry about trying to scam yourself additional product keys. As of right now, you can activate as many copies as you want with a single key, and both editions will work with either key.
Next all you need to do is hit Download Now to start the downloader.
Next we will look at the post download process.
If you haven’t done so already, you will need to download and install an ISO burning software utility which will turn the file you downloaded, into a bootable install disk. If you don’t have Nero or another CD burning utility already, I suggest CDBurnerXP. It works in both Windows XP & Vista, despite the name, and is a free, full featured burning utility.
Just select Burn ISO from the main menu, insert a blank DVD, and hit Burn.
Comments are closed on this article
shdwdragon7
May 11, 2009 at 12:55am
Yes you can, I'm set up to triple boot right now. I have two OS's on one HDD and Win7 on another. Win7 renames the drive's but all the data is still there. I was able to easly take my COD4 profile from my "old" C: drive and drop it into my Win7 C: drive/game file.
When you boot to another OS everything is back to "normal".
Vegan
May 10, 2009 at 11:05pm
I wish you could dual boot this on an XP machine. I'm not willing to make a beta my sole OS, especially when I still play a lot of old PC games.
Keith E. Whisman
May 11, 2009 at 2:13am
This is the Release Candidate. You can call this what you want. It's extremely late Beta. It's the Release Candidate. This is the version that will probably be packaged and placed on Store Shelves so I wouldn't call it a Beta. It's more of a final shake down cruise. To work out all the kinks and that should be very few kinks at this stage.
Now it's time for Hardware and Software companies to work with the near final version of the OS to optimize the drivers for performance and reliability. For everyone to get a feel for the OS so everyone will have a chance at being ready when Windows is released.
This has easily been the most pleasant Beta test and RC test I have ever experienced and the RC is excellent.
Live Long and Prosper.
shdwdragon7
May 11, 2009 at 12:59am
There's no need to worry, I'm running Linux, XP, and Win7 on one PC. Just put it on another partion or HDD (DO NOT FORMAT)
Justin.Kerr
May 10, 2009 at 11:50pm
As mentioned in the article, just pick a secondary drive / or partition. And Windows 7 will automatically setup a boot manager for you so that you can pick from XP or 7 each time you launch. If you're ever reinstalling from scratch however, always make sure you install XP first, then Windows 7. If you're looking to do a multi boot setup, always start by installing the oldest OS first.
Enjoy!
r7mr7m
May 12, 2009 at 11:47am
Let me just preface this by saying, I have been an avid PC enthusiast and professional systems/network admin for at least 12 years and have been dual/tri booting on several PCs since before Windows 2000 was released.
I was running Vista 64 Ultimate and I installed Winodws 7 64-bit early this morning on a separate partition on the same drive. There was nothing automatic about the boot manager. It did not even show that I had a Vista install in msconfig's boot tab once Windows 7 loaded.
I had to boot to my Vista 64 DVD and select repair. It only listed my Windows 7 install as available to repair but said it found problems and to reboot. Upon rebooting, I was able to select my Vista 64 (repaired) as an option and was able to boot into it successfully.
Hopefully, this helps someone if they experience the same problems.
mpcrsc562
May 11, 2009 at 5:42am
what happens when the rc trial period is over? since win 7 changes the boot loader do i have an unusuable entry on my boot screen when the trial is over? and thus, will necessitate that i have to install a program to vista to reset the bootloader? that is the only thing that is preventing me from actually installing it thus far. i am using it though, just virtualized, but i want to get the full effect of running the os on "real" hardware--i just don't want to have to go through a whole lot of rigamarole with vista after the rc trial is over and done with.
Justin.Kerr
May 11, 2009 at 6:37am
When you want to disable the boot loader, simply go back to your old OS (Vista, or XP) and click start, then run, and finally type:
msconfig
From the popup window select the boot tab, and delete the old OS entry.
Now you can just manually delete the windows 7 files on the secondary drive / partion, or format the other volume.
germainiac
July 04, 2009 at 1:21am
Say you want to disable boot loader BUT keep only Win 7 (and LOSE older system and partition). Can this be done?
Also, say you still have both partitions and boot loader, and you want to back them up with the possibility of restoring both systems AND boot loader. Is this possible with Win 7's backup utility? What about doing it from Acronis True Image 10 or Acronis True Image Home 2009?
Thanks,
--Germainiac
Odaecom
May 20, 2009 at 2:12pm
Hey thanks, I had installed the beta and got to busy and forgot to activate it, and now its black screened. Doh!
"I'm not sick, but I'm not well"
http://Odaecom.com
mpcrsc562
May 11, 2009 at 2:16pm
thanks. i'm going to put my vm on hold and install win 7 later today.
Keith E. Whisman
May 11, 2009 at 7:42am
Or if you purchase Win7 and it's the same build as RC Build 7100 then all you have to do is use your license key to re-enable you OS.
But yeah that is the way it's done.
I actually prefer Windows Vista bootloader to Linux. I like the simplistic listing at bootup. No need for any special screens with pictures I just want to choose my os and boot up and Vista Boot Loader does that with ease.
