Set up a dual-boot PC

1 PARTITION HARD DRIVE

You’ll need to partition your drive to free up space on which to store your copy of Windows. The best tool for the job is AOMEI Partition Assistant ( www.aomeitech.com/aomei-partitionassistant.html). Start by clicking Make Bootable Media under Wizards to create rescue media.

3 ADD NEW WINDOWS PARTITION

Now select the newly created Unallocated space to the right of drive C and click ‘Create Partition’ under Partition Operations. Verify NTFS is the file system and click ‘Advanced<<’ to give the partition a suitably descriptive label, such as Win7 before clicking OK. Click ‘Apply’ > Proceed and reboot.

5 INSTALL NEW COPY OF WINDOWS

Once the new partition has been created (check in Windows), reboot using the installation media for your target version of Windows. The install process is almost the same as for a regular Windows installation, but be sure to choose the newly created partition as your target during installation.

2 SHRINK MAIN PARTITION

Select your Windows drive (typically C:) and click Resize/Move Partition under Partition Operations. Use the slider to free up at least 30GB space to the right of the Windows partition. If your drive is an SSD, click ‘Advanced>>’ and tick ‘Allow partition alignment…’ Click ‘OK’.

4 TWEAK UEFI SETTINGS

If installing Windows 7 alongside Windows 8.1 or 10, you may need to reboot into your UEFI (see the main text) to enable the Compatibility Support Module (CSM), plus disable Fast Boot and Secure Boot. Once done, you should be able to boot successfully from your Windows 7 installation media.

6 POST-INSTALL STEPS

When Windows reboots for the first time you’ll see a boot menu appear listing the different versions of Windows you have installed. If the 30-second delay is too long, or you want to change the default, Click ‘Start’ > Run, type msconfig and press [Enter], then make changes from the Boot tab.