Dual boot Vista-Win 7

Some queries:

1. I see that your web site states that DB 9 is supported for Win 7, but the user gudes I downloaded less than a month ago, make no mention of Win 7.

Are there updated user guides?

2. Will there be a db 10? When?

4. How will DB 9, or 10, hande backup/retyore of a multiboot Vista/Win 7 system, with DB running in the Win 7 system?

It is my understanding that Win 7 will hide the partition in which Vista lives and pretend that Win 7 is on the C partition, even if it is on an entirely different drive, and that one can manually assign a drive letter to the Vista partition when booted to Win 7.

So, when DB is run from Win 7, I assume that DB would treat the Vista partition just like any other non-OS partition.

If it becomes necessary to restore the Vista partion when running in Win 7, I assume that I need to restore using the faey parition letter used in Win 7, but if I then boot to Vistam Vista would be on C and Win 7 would be assigned some drive letter by Vista.

And, if I have to restore the Vista parttion, running DB from a recovry CD, I guess that I have to just take care to restore the fakey drive letter to C i n Vista.

 

1. Windows 7 is now supported in Drive Backup 9 SP2.
2. User manuals can be found here:
http://www.paragon-software.com/downloads/manual.html

3. DB 10 is coming out soon.

4. DB will see all of your partitions even if Windows does not see them (inactive, hidden). As far as drive letters assignments are concerned, they're arbitrary in each OSes. So when you back up both OSes and partitions, restored them, as long as the partitions are marked correctly, the letter assignment scheme should not change.

 

Manuals have not changed, no mention of Win 7.

Drive letters are not arbitrary in MSFT's foolish implementation.
Each time I boot to, or restore, an OS the drive letters must be as previously used.

 

I would suspect the OS always takes the letter C unless it was installed under a different letter, which deeply encodes inside the registry. But are you saying that the OS that's not booted up is the concern here?

 

My concern is that it only makes sense to have the backup program installed in one OS, say, Win 7.

So the backup would include ALL partitions.

If, at some point, I would need to restore:

1. ALL partitions.
2. Only the Vista partition.
3. Only the Win 7 partition

Then the right thing had better happen no matter to which OS I boot.

About an hour ago, I finally received a copy of the MSFT Press book Win 7 Inside Out, you betta believe that I am going to carefully read everything related to installation and dual boot. Oh, what a fun life I have!

 

Don't know what your concern is about dual booting in particular. Granted, it's not for the unintiated necessarily, but.....

I am dual booting XP64 and Win7x64 off of the same drive. Started with XP64 on partition 1 of my first HDD as the only OS.

Used Paragon Disk Director Suite. Used the "Install new OS" functionality (already had second partition created on first HDD for Win7 --- though it will create that for you if you need it to). IT marked the second partition as active and primary, hid the first partition and marked IT inactive. Rebooted with Win7 CD in the CD Rom. Loaded Win7, rebooted INTO Win7, installed Disk Director Suite into Win7. Invoked Boot Manager from within the Suite from Win7. It found the first hidden partition, and, upon re-boot, I had the paragon boot manager properly indicating both OSs as a "user choice". I have been running a seamless dual boot set-up since.

Be aware that the book you have will NOT give you all of the info you need. If you are running Vista, and choose to install Win7, you can have win7 do the legwork of creating the dual boot for you, but there are nuances to doing this.

If you have XP now, and choose to dual boot with Win7, proceed with caution. The boot loaders (from MS) between WIn7 and XP are different, and you can create a true pickle for yourself.

I recommend a thrid party (Paragon ) boot loader app to handle XP and Win7.

Even if you are trying to do Vista vs Win7 dual booting, do it with Paragon. I think you will find that it is rather seamless. As a matter of fact, I printed the chapter from the Paragon manual (RTFM lol) regarding dual booting. IMHO it was quite well written, if you can get over the German to English translation by a non-native English speaker LOL. Really, it's not bad. I grew up in Germany and could see some of the translation anomalies and I had to chuckle (in a respectful way).

Don't bother with Acronis. That thing is a buggy nightmare (IMHO---and I speak from direct experience AND I am not exactly a moron when it comes to pooters) trying to get a Win7/XP dual boot set-up. Their boot loader app is touchy at best, and particularly unreliable. It will disappear and reappear at will. You also may need to manually edit and set up entries in an XML file, unless they have since gotten that in there for Win7.

 

Is there a trial version that includes SP2?

 

I was raised on pickles.
Hmmm, perhads tge sour pickles turned me int to curmudgean that I am?