Installing Windows 7 and Vista on same machine

raksrules

raksrules

Level N
I have a Toshiba Satellite L300D laptop which is around 2.5 years old and has the following config

1.90 gigahertz AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core QL-60
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded
2GB RAM (details are Slot 'SODIMM 1' has 2048 MB but it says 1790 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory, not sure what it means :S)
ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics [Display adapter]
Realtek High Definition Audio
Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter
Realtek RTL8101 Family PCI-E Fast Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0)
TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-L633A ATA Device [Optical drive]

I have a 160 GB HDD in this but most probably it will replaced soon with something else as the existing one is full of bad sectors and i expect it to crash any time soon.

This laptop when purchased had come with Windows Vista Home premium and that is the main reason i need to have Vista installed as i can easily find drivers for the various things like ethernet, wifi etc.
Also i have never tried windows 7 and planning to install that too but not sure whether i will get drivers for the same.

I am not very acquainted with OS install (i know how to do it) and configs required so please let me know as to whether above config is good enough for doing a setup as per my requirement ?
Also how should i go about installing both OSes as i dont want any conflict and need to ensure that both OSes are installed properly in different partitions and can work in dual boot configuration.

I may have some more queries but that may crop up later on.
 
Let me try to answer your queries.

raksrules said:
2GB RAM (details are Slot 'SODIMM 1' has 2048 MB but it says 1790 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory, not sure what it means :S)..........
Click to expand...

This may be because rest of the memory is used by your ATI Graphics card.

raksrules said:
This laptop when purchased had come with Windows Vista Home premium and that is the main reason i need to have Vista installed as i can easily find drivers for the various things like ethernet, wifi etc.

Also i have never tried windows 7 and planning to install that too but not sure whether i will get drivers for the same.
Click to expand...

If you are installing Windows Vista just for drivers, I suggest you can skip that as you can easily find drivers for Windows 7. In fact I assume most of the drivers for 2-3 old laptops are already included in Windows 7 and they will work fine without any issues. Also if you have Vista drivers, you can use the same on Windows 7 installation as almost 99% are compatible.

Still if you want to install both the operating systems, these are the steps.

1) Ideally you should have 2 partitions for each OS (Vista and Windows 7)

2) Install Windows Vista first on one partition.

3) Install Windows 7 after your Vista installation on second partition and while installing, select customize installation and go for fresh install on the other remaining partition.

4) As for the steps required during OS installation, there are not much in Windows, and almost all of them are self explanatory. You just need to provide name, time zone and other minor details.
 
^^ You mean windows 7 setup may already be packed with drivers for most of the hardware that i have (display, graphics card, ethernet, wifi...what else ??)

Is there any way to confirm that ?

*noob here*

I usually search for laptop model and its OS drivers like in this case i would have searched (windows 7 drivers for toshiba satellite L300D) and expect the drivers to show up.

Possibly i should drill down search like "ATI Radeon 3100" drivers for windows 7 or something like that.

And i would be more than glad if there is no issue with compatibility of vista drivers with 7 and in that case i would only go with one OS namely windows 7.

Which variant of windows 7 will be good for my config ? I dont even know what all variant exists :ashamed:
 
a 32 bit or even a 64 bit windows should do fine for you.

as for the drivers (wifi,bluetooth, etc. ) first check with toshiba website.

they normally have those drivers on their website.

so i suggest u this

install windows 7 (any variants will do ). i have installed an x64 ultimate on dell latitude laptop (dual core 1.6GHZ) and had no problems in it.

but first do check if you get the drivers on their website. my guess they will be there
 
raksrules said:
^^ You mean windows 7 setup may already be packed with drivers for most of the hardware that i have (display, graphics card, ethernet, wifi...what else ??)
Click to expand...
That's right. A lot of drives are included with Windows 7.
ATI graphics/video driver is not included.
raksrules said:
Is there any way to confirm that ?
Click to expand...
No.
The easier way to know is to install Windows 7 and check (Windows 7 installation is very easy and quick). Go to device manager and see which ones have a question mark against them.
raksrules said:
And i would be more than glad if there is no issue with compatibility of vista drivers with 7 and in that case i would only go with one OS namely windows 7.
Click to expand...
Yes almost all vista drivers are compatible with Windows 7.
raksrules said:
Which variant of windows 7 will be good for my config ?
Click to expand...
Compare Windows 7 - Microsoft Windows
Compare Windows 7 Editions - Windows 7 Forums
raksrules said:
I dont even know what all variant exists :ashamed:
Click to expand...
Windows 7 - Editions
 
raksrules said:
^^ You mean windows 7 setup may already be packed with drivers for most of the hardware that i have (display, graphics card, ethernet, wifi...what else ??)

Is there any way to confirm that ?

*noob here*
Click to expand...

I would suggest you to run Windows 7 upgrade advisor on your machine to find out potential problems with hardware or software you are using

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor - Download - Microsoft Windows

raksrules said:
I usually search for laptop model and its OS drivers like in this case i would have searched (windows 7 drivers for toshiba satellite L300D) and expect the drivers to show up.

Possibly i should drill down search like "ATI Radeon 3100" drivers for windows 7 or something like that.

And i would be more than glad if there is no issue with compatibility of vista drivers with 7 and in that case i would only go with one OS namely windows 7.
Click to expand...
Yes, it's better to search with specific component model to find out drivers. Here is one link for your drivers of your display card.

ATI Radeon HD 3100 drivers

raksrules said:
Which variant of windows 7 will be good for my config ? I don't even know what all variant exists :ashamed:
Click to expand...

As you were using Windows Vista Home Premium, I would suggest to go for Windows 7 Home Premium 32 or 64 bit.
 
From my first post, there is a mention that my system is probably 64 bit ready which possibly means i can install a x64 version of windows 7. right ?
I need to know what option is good for me ?
I have no clue what is difference between 32 and 64bit OS and just know one thing that if i have 4 GB RAM then 32 Bit cannot access more than certain memory while with 64 bit i can, something i dont care about since i have a 2 GB RAM module.
So how do i decide on which to install whenever i do it ??
 
install whichever version u can source dude ;)

do not worry any versions will work fine as long as you have the appropriate drivers with you.
 
As humans has confirmed in his earlier post, Windows 7 does come with majority of the drivers. You may not have to install any if you're lucky. And Windows Update will find the remaining drivers on its first run. You'll find them under Optional Updates. So, stop worrying and go ahead :)
 
ggt said:
install whichever version u can source dude ;)
do not worry any versions will work fine as long as you have the appropriate drivers with you.
Click to expand...

From whatever i read, most windows 7 installations give option of either installing X86 or X64 and hence i can install whatever out of them when i actually install it.
Freaky said:
As humans has confirmed in his earlier post, Windows 7 does come with majority of the drivers. You may not have to install any if you're lucky. And Windows Update will find the remaining drivers on its first run. You'll find them under Optional Updates. So, stop worrying and go ahead :)
Click to expand...
You see windows update is something which i will keep off full time after installation, you know why and hence i need to be sure about the drivers. ;)
Moreover i am finding the vista drivers on my laptop and also on net and keeping it safe somewhere so i can install those drivers after installing the OS.
 
raksrules said:
From whatever i read, most windows 7 installations give option of either installing X86 or X64 and hence i can install whatever out of them when i actually install it.
Click to expand...

No, the installation media for both 32 and 64 bit are different. Although I can understand from the source you may be getting your media may have combined these in one DVD.

But I will suggest you to download and use Windows 7 32 bit and skip the 64 bit as you have only 2 GB RAM, minimum recommended standard for 64 bit installation. So on your machine 32 bit will be faster than 64 bit.
 
^^ i agree. install the 32bit Win7 for the reasons mentioned above. even i have a old dual core 1.6GHzz sony vaio which was preinstalled with vista. i installed win7 without any problems.

as far the the drivers are concerned windows will find most of them for you. kindly look up at your laptops manufacturers website.
 
While installing windows 7 will it give me option to partition my HDD ? I would be replacing my current laptop HDD with a new 320GB one which i will need to partition.

So i will be in a situation where on a completely blank un-partitioned HDD in my laptop, i will be install windows 7 and will need to partition the HDD at installation time, is that possible ?
 
I had HP DV5 laptop , on which i installed both vista and windows 7.

First of all copy the drivers install file from yr c: drive.

most of Vista drivers work on windows 7.

Sencondly, the partitiion could me made by using srinking the drive from already installed vista os.

1. Right click the computer icon on desktop of yr computer.

2. Then click on manage.

3. Then one screen comes, then click on storage.

4. then click on disk management.

4. it will list u the drives on yr computer. here u can shrink any drive, even the one with os installed.

5. Make the new drive on the space provided after srinking..

6. Install the windows 7 on the new drive.
 
^^Thanks for the input and as many people have suggested that only for driver's sake i dont need to install both OSes, i will be going with installing on Windows 7 x86 version on my laptop.

Btw you have mentioned that i can copy the driver file from my C: (or wherever they are). Is it actually possible to rip out the drivers from the currently installed vista and take a (sort of backup) and then reinstall the windows 7 and use those driver files to install drivers ??

If yes then let me know how to extract drivers from the installed files.

Btw i have found quiet a few drivers for basic components in laptop for vista/7 and will be downloading them in couple of days.
 
I have finally installed windows 7 on my machine and completely removed Vista. All is fine as of now. But when i right click my computer the RAM is shown as 2GB but usable as 1.75 GB. What is the explanation for this ?? Why am i not able to utilize the 0.25 GB part ???

The windows experience index which i know is of no value is 3.1 :P

I had no need to install any drivers since most of them were likely bundled in the installation which i feel is super cool (first time windows 7 here :ashamed:)

Although as of now, every now and then windows tries to tell me that my HDD is failing and i should replace it soon.

Liking the look and feel, rest of the things seem to be working fine.
 
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