Windows 7 has been making news every single day and its beta editions are already out for trials. It is predicted that Windows 7 will be introduced to the world on 24^th January 2009.

Till then if you have been following Windows 7 updates and wants to try it on your PC running on Windows Vista or XP, then today’s tutorial will help you dual boot your pre-existing OS plus Windows 7. It’ll help you adjust partitions your hard drive for the Windows 7 installation and will not dump any of your current settings of your PC.

To begin with trying out Windows 7, you will need to download a 2 GB Windows 7 installation file and burn it on a DVD.

You can get the 32-bit Version from Here. And 64-bit Version from Here.

Now, let’s begin with the installation. Once you have downloaded the ISO file, you will have to burn it to a DVD, to do it, use ImgBurn.

Before you proceed any further, you will have to partition you hard drive to install Windows 7. It requires a 16 GB hard drive space, and if you are using windows XP, you will need partitioning software, for Vista, the partitioning tool comes with it.

To partition your hard drive in XP, you will need a third party software. I would suggest using GParted, which can handle all the partitioning easily. It is a free open source software, and you can download it here and burn it to a CD, and then reboot your PC, and you will boot into the partitioning tool. You can resize your current OS partition to free up some space and create a partition for Windows 7 partition ( a minimum of 16GB). Create the new partition, and apply the changes. You can skip the option if you already have 16GB free space on any of your hard drive.

To partition your hard drive in Vista, go to Control Panel -> System and Maintainence (skip this one if you’re in Classic view) -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. Click on Disk Management under the storage heading in the sidebar. You can create a “New Simple Volume” from the free space you create or use any other partition.

Now, once the partitioning is done, its installation time. Insert the Windows 7 DVD you burnt and reboot your computer, you have to enable boot from DVD in your system BIOS, if not enabled by default.

Once the DVD boots up, later the process is pretty much simple. During the installation wizard, make sure you choose Custom(advance) and choose partition you set up earlier before. If you select a wrong partition, the installation might wipe out all the data on the partition you select.

It’ll take some time while the installation completes. Once it reboots, enter the license key and setup you’re Windows.

To get the license key, visit TechNet Download, sign in let the page load. Now once the page is complete, copy the link in the same window “https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/scripts/gcs.aspx?Product=tn-win7-64-ww&LCID=1033″ into the address bar or “https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/scripts/gcs.aspx?Product=tn-win7-32-ww&LCID=1033″ (64bit key but will work on 32 too, if you get an error refresh a few times)…enjoy the result below (32 bit link seems to work better). Try cleaning you cookies and temp files if you getting error. It depends on the stock, as Microsoft is providing 2.5 billion activation keys.

And you are done, next time you boot your PC, you will see an option of Windows 7 in the boot option plus your previous operating system. You can also use Windows 7, Vista and XP, on the same PC by installing OS on different partitions.

Check out Windows 7 Official Site here

Screenshots:

Click to Enlarge

Related posts:

1. Install Windows XP On Windows Vista Most of you guys out there have experienced this that...
2. Create or Resize Hard Drive Partition A lot of my friends ask me if there is...
3. Get Windows 7 Calculator On Windows Vista & XP Windows 7 news are flooding as Microsoft prepares to unveil...
4. Get Windows 7 Sidebar For XP And Vista If you still haven’t upgraded to the Windows 7 beta...
5. Use USB Drive to Install Windows Vista Yes, Gravity Blue just got a new theme. Thanks to...
6. Windows Vista Dark Logon For XP I found this cool Windows Vista dark logon for Windows...
7. Network Windows XP With Vista Earlier I told you guys on sharing internet between vista...