Frustration, thats what struck me, I mean I’ve installed Windows numerous times, infact most of it to my friends and family members etc etc, and there is one lesson I still fail to learn, when I wanna dual boot two Windows versions, its a only logical to install the lower version of Windows first followed by the higher version. In my case, I should have followed this order, FIRST INSTALL WINDOWS XP, AND THEN INSTALL WINDOWS VISTA/7 SO THE VISTA BOOTLOADER WILL MAKE THINGS EASY FOR YOU!!!!

Sorry for the dramatic shouting, I couldn’t help myself for being such a doodoo brain :P . Anyway I always do this mistake, subconsciously or unconsciously if you must put a word to it, although there are pre-defined ways around the internet, and many bootloader controlling softwares around to make dual booting windows versions, whilst vista/7 installed first, all of those steps are tedious to follow for a rookie user.

So what did I do? I learnt from my mistake and writing this easy solution for you, which will simply help you dual boot, without any time seeking methods or softwares, when you have Windows Vista or v7 pre-installed. Considering you’ve installed Windows XP now, and you can only boot into that, here is what you do.

Steps:

  1. Boot into your trusty Windows Vista/7 Installation DVD and Select “Repair My Computer” from the menu that appears.
  2. Select “Boot Up Problems” from the following menu. Then follow the on screen instructions to bring back the Vista/v7 bootloader.
  3. Once your into your v7 or Vista OS, open up command prompt with administrative rights.
  4. Run the following sequence of commands :

bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d “Windows XP”

bcdedit /set {ntldr} device boot

bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr

bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast

Finally exit the command prompt, and your done :) hope this tip really helped you out. Thanks for reading, so until next time, take care readers :)

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