The last thing you need to mull over
before getting down to the nitty-gritty of the Setup program is whether
you want to run Windows 8 exclusively or “dual-boot” with another
operating system. Dual-booting means that when you start your
computer, you have the option of running Windows 8 or some other
operating system, such as Windows 7 or XP. It’s even possible to
multi-boot, which means having the choice of three or more operating
systems at startup.
Windows 8 keeps track of which operating
systems are installed on your PC by using a data store called the Boot
Configuration Data (BCD). Earlier Windows versions that are compatible
with the BCD are Windows 7 and Windows Vista. This means that if you
have a system currently running either Vista or Windows 7, when you
install Windows 8, the BCD will automatically set up a dual-boot
configuration. Actually, we should say that Windows 8 sets up the
automatic dual-boot provided you do two things:
• Install Windows 8 to a separate partition on your hard disk or to a separate hard disk connected to your PC.
• You install Windows 8 after you install the earlier OS.
For versions of Windows prior to Vista that
aren’t compatible with the BCD store, the BCD lumps everything together
under the rubric “Earlier Version of Windows,” and it uses the legacy BOOT.INI file to store the boot data from these older operating systems.
You might be surprised to
hear that the BCD is actually quite configurable.
The next two sections show you how to dual- and multi-boot Windows 8 with various other systems.
Dual-Booting Windows 8
Assuming your PC has the earlier version of
Windows already installed, follow these steps to install Windows 8 for
dual-booting with the other OS:
1. Boot to the Windows
8 install media and then follow the initial prompts to launch the
installation, enter your product key, and accept the license agreement.
2. When you get to the Which Type of Installation Do You Want? dialog box , be sure to click the Custom option.
3. Click the partition
you want to use to install Windows 8. Remember, be sure to choose a
partition other than the one where your current version of Windows is
installed. This will be the partition with System shown in the Type
column, as you can see in Figure 1.
Figure 1. When installing Windows 8, be sure to select a partition other than the one where your current version of Windows is loaded.
4. Follow the install steps we outlined earlier to complete the Windows 8 installation
Multi-Booting with Three or More Operating Systems
For maximum OS flexibility, you want to have
three or more systems available on your machine so that you can
multi-boot among them. Depending on the operating systems you want to
use, this isn’t all that much more work than setting up a dual-boot
system.
If you’re installing only
Windows operating systems, you need only keep the following two points
in mind for foolproof multi-booting:
• Install each operating system to its own partition on your hard disk or to its own hard disk connected to your PC.
• Install the operating systems in
release date order, with the oldest operating first and Windows 8 last.
For example, if you want to multi-boot Windows XP, Windows 7, and
Windows 8, install XP, then Windows 7, then Windows 8.
If you want to multi-boot other
operating systems, such as Linux, then your best bet is a third-party
boot manager program or the boot manager that comes with the OS (such
as any of the boot managers that come with Linux distributions)..
