Installing multiple operating systems on a computer
This article will discuss how to easily and quickly handle the installation of more than one operating system on your computer, or OS for short. Several classic and most popular combinations of operating systems or bundles will be considered. We will talk about the general principle of installing the OS and the main details of this process.
Installing a combination of the Windows 7 and Windows XP operating systems on a computer is very popular. During the installation of the mentioned combination of operating systems, the PC user will have to use special software (software) to download two OS. As an example, we can recommend a small and easy-to-use EasyBCD program to configure the Windows boot loader. With the help of EasyBCD, any user can configure a Windows boot loader so that it is possible to load several operating systems on one computer, including almost all versions of Windows, Linux, Mac OS X. In addition, EasyBCD is distributed by its creators for free.
With the usual alternate installation of two operating systems (without using the aforementioned auxiliary program), the result will be the following - only the operating system installed by the latter will be downloaded to the user's PC. During the installation of the Windows family of OS, the loaders of all operating systems previously installed on the computer are automatically erased and their native loader is installed in their place. It is for this reason that you have to use such programs to install the OS as EasyBCD.
This installer program can be downloaded and left for a while on a neutral information medium or downloaded to a computer after installing one of the above-mentioned Windows OS. It is worth saying that it does not matter which version will be installed first - Windows XP or Windows 7.
After installing the first version, you can start installing the second operating system, only on a different partition, it would be better if the installation of the new operating system is on another hard drive. The next step is to install EasyBCD operating system installation programs on your computer.
The interface of this program can be in Russian or English. In the case of the second option, you still should not worry if you know at least the basics of this foreign language. Having opened the OS insolation program, you must add an entry about the first installed OS to the boot program so that when you turn on the computer, you can download it if you want, and not just the second OS installed by default. On the control panel of the OS installation program, you must add a new input to load the installed first operating system. After reviewing the readings of the program settings, the user will find two entries in the boot program: the Windows XP operating system and the Windows 7 system. For this, this setup procedure can be considered successfully completed and the computer can be restarted calmly. In the future, the user can already boot from his preferred operating system.
An alternative and quite common among PC users is also installing on your computer a combination of operating systems such as Linux and Windows. This bundle will allow the user to test the operating system of the Linux family without interruption from the beloved by many Windows system, to which an already defined attachment has developed.
In this case, the user can do without a program that configures the boot record, as in the first case described above. It uses the standard features of the Linux operating system. First need to establish in a classic way, the operating system of the Windows family, and then install Linux and the OS, which, compared to Windows, does not erase foreign bootloaders during the installation process. During the installation of the Linux operating system, in no case should you use the entire disk if you do not want to lose all the data on it. You just need to initially select a separate section for this need. When the installation is complete, Linux automatically creates a boot menu on which the user can select any of the operating systems available for booting in the future. At the same time, the whole process of installing this combination of operating systems can also be carried out by itself using a special program for installing the OS, like the same EasyBCD.
The combination of installation operating systems on a computer can consist not only of two systems, but also more. For example, using the EasyBCD operating system or other similar programs capable of creating accounts in the boot program, you can create a combination with the Linux operating system, Windows XP, Windows 7, and some other portable operating system such as Kolibri OS. Tabs create entries for all installed operating systems. Thus, you can optionally install another operating system of the Mac OS family or an old version of the operating system of the Windows family, like the same Windows 98 or Windows NT and so on.
So, we briefly examined several options for installing combinations of several different operating systems on one computer. In the process associated with the installation of various operating systems, experiments, the PC user should be careful about the choice of software products installed by him on his PC, taking into account their origin and quality. In the end, you should not particularly get involved and stick to reasonable measures in your desire to experiment. We wish you all the uptime of your computer, regardless of the operating systems and software installed there.