Windows 7 & 10 on one machine?

[Bert Coules]

Thanks.

[Bert Coules]

The immediate Christmas jollity now out of the way I've been able to return to the question of Win 7 and Win 10 in the same desktop PC.

With each OS on a separate SSD, pressing f8 during bootup brings up a list of installed drives and other gubbinses, ending in Windows Boot Manager, which when selected lists both 7 and 10. So so far, so good.

Selecting 7 takes me straight to a Checkdisk check of drive C, the Win 7 SSD. This finds no problems and 7 then loads and runs.

Selecting 10 brings up a message to the effect that Windows has detected unauthorised hardware or firmware changes (I quote from memory but that's not far off) and I'm asked to insert a Win10 repair disk. I haven't tried this yet, but it's next on the agenda.

Wish me luck...

[Paul]

On an Asus motherboard, you enter the BIOS setup screen (UEFI BIOS) and set the OS Type to "Other OS". This effectively treats Windows 7 the same as Linux, no support for Secure Boot. (Linux actually has some sort of shim scheme now, and this "Other OS" idea existed before the shim method was known.) The Other OS setting enables both Windows 7 or Windows 10 to boot, without entering the BIOS constantly and fooling around.

The NTFS file system version number is 3.1 on both OSes. However, Microsoft reserves the right to add features to the Windows 10 version of NTFS, via reparse points. Reparse points are custom file system features. Linux cannot keep up with these, resulting in Linux reporting (incorrectly) "I/O Error" when working in System32 area. Later Linux OSes report a slightly more correct technical error, that "Linux cannot parse this...".

OK so far, but there is additional fun when CHKDSK comes along. You might notice that some of your CHKDSK runs take half an hour instead of a minute or two. I notice very slow "Extended Attribute" checking going on.

Windows 10 also damaged $MFTMIRR and some flavor of $BITMAP. BITMAP is likely there to keep track of which parts of the partition are not used yet. Macrium Reflect Free, version

6.3, stopped making backups at one point, when it stumbled on this sort of damage. Macrium released a new version which could deal with these differences. In other words, Windows 10 is not a good corporate citizen. My wild guess is, these changes are related to not "burning a hole" in SSD drives. Microsoft do not usually admit to the monkey business they've been up to.

I'm surprised the Windows Boot Manager entry, already knows about both OSes. That could only happen, if some sort of OS Upgrade happened while both hard drives were plugged into the computer. It should have taken some EasyBCD or similar work, to get both of them there.

Now, a guess would be, if the menu has a Windows Boot Manager entry, and two OS lozenges show in the shiny GUI, then you have no additional work to do. The UEFI BIOS has a tendency to allow the Windows Boot Manager to run first (most of the time, by random chance), so perhaps no further coercing is required. I've noticed mine hopping on the Windows Boot Manager and mostly ignoring the Linux entry. But there have also been cases where the Linux one went first, perhaps when it was attempting to Secure Boot.

You can modify the BIOS disk menu area to hint that a particular drive should "go first", then not bother with F8 steering.

There will be additional surprises, if Fastboot is engaged and the computer uses Hibernation bit in the chipset. This can cause attempts to multiboot, to end up in the same OS each time (ignoring your wishes or ignoring any menu). Disable Fastboot in Windows 10 to stop this.

Paul

[Bert Coules]

Paul,

Many thanks for the detailed reply. This is the latest situation:

I tried booting from a Win10 recovery disk as asked. This brought up the message, "The drive with Windows is locked. Unlock it to proceed". (Again, that's from memory but it's not far out.)

I decided then to leave any further experimentation until tomorrow, so I removed the recovery disk and rebooted without pressing f8 for the boot menu, expecting to go straight into Win7 as usual. But instead I got ,"Windows has detected unauthorised hardware or firmware changes. Insert recovery disk".

In went the Win7 recovery disk. Which got me nowhere, just the same message.

So I tried unplugging every drive except the Win7 SSD (the C: drive). And the computer would not boot. The BIOS listed the drive and identified it as SATA 1, but it did not appear in the main BIOS screen boot options menu. However it did turn up when I pressed f8 from the BIOS screen and I was able to select it from there and move it up the list. Then I saved-and-exited ("You have not made any changes" I was told) and - eventually - the computer loaded Windows 7.

So here I am back in Win7 but (at the moment) with no other drives connected, where I usually have two 2TB hard drives and a BluRay deck.

I suppose the next step is to power down, reconnect everything else (though possibly not the Win10 SSD), and see what happens.

But I think I'll have some dinner and watch Only Connect first.

[Paul]

That's what I'm doing right now, thanks to computers :-)

Paul

[Bert Coules]

I got caught by all the Monday evening quiz shows, and was too settled into my comfy armchair to hurry back to my desk. And now I think I might leave the next stage of experimenting until the morning.

[Bert Coules]

I solved the boot problem. I was getting the message, "The system found unauthorised changes on the firmware, operating system or UEFI drivers...". This led to the BIOS setup which showed no changes that I could detect.

A Google search turned up an article from 2016 describing exactly this fault and attributing it to a then-recent Windows 7 update which changed the Secure Boot setting of the BIOS - the fix is to change the setting from Windows UEFI mode to Other OS.

It seems that this four year old update just recently hit my PC. I changed the setting and it now boots up into Win7 as it used to.

My dual-boot question remains unanswered, but to be honest my attempts to install and evaluate Windows 10 have given me so many headaches that I'm no longer inclined to bother. I'm perfectly happy with Win7 and unconvinced that any potential advantages of the later OS are worth the hassle.

[Andy Burns]

It's your can, and you're free to kick it down the road; but expect software (it'll mainly be web browsers that matter) to stop supporting win7 in a couple of years ...

[Bert Coules]

Nice expression: I've not heard that before.

I suppose if I ever feel the need to update or change any of my key software that could be a problem, but I haven't been inclined to do so for a good few years and I'm not sure that's going to change. It's an excellent point though. Thanks.

[Dave Plowman (News]

I have a pretty recent GigaByte MB. Hoping it was more long lasting than Asus.

Setting it to Other OS makes no difference. If I set it to boot from the Win7 SSD, I get the same error as Bert. Even with the other HDs (etc) unplugged.

[Bert Coules]

That's hard luck; as I said, making that one change cured the problem for me, though with a curious side effect: after the Win7 password-entry page I'm now presented with a totally blank (blue) screen for quite a few seconds before my desktop appears: that's something new.

[Andy Burns]

Was the win7 installed when the UEFI setting was set for secure boot? if so it won't boot when secure boot is turned off.

[Bert Coules]

As you might have seen from my earlier post I discovered this myself from a Google search: for whatever reason, I'd read but not really taken in your own explanation; my apologies, and belated thanks for posting the solution, even if I didn't act on it.

[Dave Plowman (News]

I changed to Win10 mainly because of online banking. And it being said it would soon become even less secure.

Win7 will probably still be fine - provided you never use it for anything that could end up costing you.

However, having now used Win10 for a few months, I no longer regret the change (as I did at first).

[Bert Coules]

I'm aware that I'm probably not giving Win10 a fair crack of the whip, but the recent havoc it unleashed on my main PC has made me very wary. Possibly if I had a separate machine running it I'd be able to give it a fairer evaluation.

[Dave Plowman (News]

No. The Win7 SSD was on the ancient MB - that wouldn't work with Win10. Don't think UEFI existed when it was new.

EasyBCD does have quite a bit to say about dual booting Win10. It worked perfectly with Win7 and the other OS I have. But it looks pretty involved to dual boot Win10 - and the desire to do so diminishes every day. ;-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

create a virtual machine and run it from that I am sure virtual box runs under win7

[Paul]

I did an install here with Secure Boot disabled, and installed Windows 7 SP1 Pro x64. Installed and boots with no problem (on "real hardware"). The Asus is four or five years old or so.

Where problems show up, is if I do a P2V and take it into VirtualBox. A red bar appears near the top of the Guest screen and it stops before getting very far into boot. I presume this is related to the stinko VirtualBox 6 graphics choices.

There was also no problem installing 20H2 from a USB stick booted in UEFI mode. Does a UEFI install.

I didn't bother to put them both on HDD at the same time and do further tests, because I don't think there's much point. Unless someone needs this for some reason, I know it's going to work. Adding a stanza to a BCD isn't exactly rocket science at this point. Macrium Reflect could be used to repair the two-drive setup and automatically generate a working BCD.

I already have W7 and W10 on the 3TB drive, running with the "Other OS" setting, and being good citizens about it. I only did a couple test installs, just to try (again) to get VirtualBox to work. They changed the VirtualBox version to "6", but seem to have done squat in terms of things that matter. VBoxmanage still doesn't have fully orthogonal features - when I went to use modifymedia it wasted my time by letting me enter the command, then emits a "this feature is not supported" on my screen (classy - just put the non-conformance in the damn manual, don't tease me).

I used the Hologram Win7 DVD for the install, as that's the media I can trust to support UEFI and legacy. Some other procedures for prepping media on USB sticks, only support one mode but not necessarily the other. You boot the install media in UEFI mode, to do a UEFI install.

And I only do 64 bit installs this way, as I don't know what 32 bit Win7 would do for all these cases. If I needed a 32 bit Win7, I'd do legacy partitioning.

The only situation that's really broken, is the level of support for UEFI in VirtualBox 5 or VirtualBox 6.

Paul

[John Rumm]

One of the reasons we suggested sticking one OS inside a VM on the other!

[Dave Plowman (News]

Yes. IMHO, it's likely my new MB which is the culprit.