Many friends did not retain the original XP operating system when installing Windows 7. After using Windows 7 for a period of time, they discovered that certain tasks at work run better under XP. If you want to try out a new system without affecting your normal work, you need to consider dual-system Windows 7 or XP. By default, you cannot directly install an older version of XP system in the Windows 7 environment. In fact, it can be achieved with a little change of selections.
Restore XP system through mirroring
If you have installed XP before, you may have used Ghost to back it up. You can use this backed up .gho system image of the XP system to restore it to other partitions other than the C drive, and use WIndows 7 to form a dual system. The following operations are required:
Step 1: Modify the location of the Ghost image installation partition. Boot to Windows 7, run GHost Explorer, and open the previously backed up Ghost image file, in this case Sys.gho in the e:Ghost directory. Extract the three system files boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com in the root directory of the image file to the root directory of the C drive where the Windows 7 system is located. Then open the View tab of the folder options to display all system files with hidden attributes, then remove the read-only attribute of the system file boot.ini, open it with Notepad, and replace the 1 in the string Partition(1) in the text with 2 (2 means that the XP system image in .gho format will be restored to the D drive, if it is 3, it means the E drive, and so on), and finally save the modifications to the system file boot.ini.
Step 2: Add XP menu startup items. Under Windows 7 system, first install the Han Gong version of EasyBcd that comes with the supplementary CD. After running it, click the Add/Remove (Project) button on the left side of the EasyBCD main interface, then click the drop-down arrow on the right side of the version and select Windows NT/2K/ XP/2K3 option. Then enter c: in the text box to the right of the disk, and enter your favorite text in the text box to the right of the rename (early version of Windows shown at c). Finally, click the Add and Save buttons in the interface shown in Figure 1 to add a menu option to start XP.
Step 3: Start with the WinPE CD from Computer Fan CD to restore the XP system. Run the lossless partition software WinPM7.0 under the WinPE system, then right-click the C drive partition where win+r 7 is located, and select Hide to hide the partition. Run Ghost again and restore the XP image file you have backed up to the partition where the D drive is located in Figure 2. After completing the recovery operation of the XP system image, start WinPE and run WinPm 7.0. Finally, right-click the C drive partition again and select Show to display the hidden C drive partition.
After the above operations, when you restart the system, you can see the classic dual-boot menu. Select one of the menu items and you can successfully log in to XP or Windows 7. Before using the GHost image to install XP, hide Windows 7 The C drive partition where it is located is essential, otherwise the Ghost version of XP that was backed up in advance often cannot be installed successfully.
Install XP from installation disk
If you have no Ghost backup of XP before and want to install XP under Windows 7 system, you can also use the XP installation disk.
First put the XP installation disk into the CD-ROM drive, then perform the installation operation of XP, and install the XP operating system to any partition other than the C drive. After the installation is completed, you can only log in to XP temporarily. This is because the WIndows 7 boot information is overwritten by the XP installer. You can then create a startup menu for XP according to the method introduced in step 2 above. After completing the above operations, log in to XP and run EasyBcd, then click the Manage Boot Project button, then check the newly appeared Reset Windows Vista Boot Project radio box and click the Write button.
When running Easybcd in the XP operating system, you must ensure that the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 environment has been installed in the XP operating system in advance.
PS: How to delete the XP system in dual systems
It is also very easy to delete XP in the XP+Windows 7 dual system: first format the partition where XP is located under the Windows 7 system, then display all system files with hidden attributes and delete Boot.ini, Ntldr, and Ntdetect in the root directory of the C drive .com system files, then run Easybcd, select the earlier version of Windows, and then click the Delete and Save buttons to restore the Windows 7 single system.