# Dual Boot Windows 10 and Windows XP



## lucci06225 (Sep 7, 2016)

How to Make a Dual Boot Windows 10 and Windows XP. Please help me, i need it badly :'(


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## OldGrayGary (Jun 29, 2006)

The most stable dual-boot method involves starting from scratch: partitioning a blank hard drive, installing XP first (to the first partition) & installing Windows 10 later (to a different partition). 

If you have either internal or external data drives, those are best disconnected while setting up the dual-boot. If you have existing data partitions on the drive from which you wish to dual-boot, it's best to move those to an external backup of some sort before installing the dual-boot. You then restore them to whatever drive you wish after the dual-boot is setup, as space availability allows.

Haven't heard much lately about dual boots (although, by chance, you are the 2nd thread this week for such) ... at least on the Windows side of life [since Linux dual-boots are trivially easy]. For workstation class and high-performance personal PCs, having Windows XP run in a "virtual machine" is a more comfortable option.

At any rate, here are two reasonably decent guides to dual-booting older versions of Windows with Windows 10:
How to Dual Boot Windows 10 and Previous Windows Versions
How to Dual-Boot Two (or More) Versions of Windows

Let us know if you have questions


[P.S.. .... I recommend disabling Internet connections for the XP system ... since it is no longer easy to protect on the Internet]


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## lucci06225 (Sep 7, 2016)

i there anything uses EasyBCD?


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## OldGrayGary (Jun 29, 2006)

Hi again

I've never used EasyBCD, but it has a good reputation. They have decent free documentation concerning XP dual boots on their NeoSmart website, which you can have a close look at - since the XP bootloader is so different from the Vista and newer versions of Windows (which have the BCD partition from which EasyBCD gets its name). Here's a link to their documentation page:
https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/supported-operating-systems/

For all the dual boots I've had over the years, I've generally let the newest Windows bootloader handle things (for all-Windows multiboot systems) and let the Grub/Grub2 bootloader handle things (for multi-boot systems that include a Linux distro). I believe EasyBCD is handy when you like more detailed control (I imagine it makes nice-looking multi-boot menu screens, too).

Cheers


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## kendallt (Feb 21, 2007)

My preference has always been using different hard drives for each OS, use f12 to select OS or have external drives you can turn on to choose.
My reasoning is that if something goes wrong on a single duel boot drive, I'd lose both operating systems, with separate drives, I should always have at least one OS I can boot into and attempt to recover the other. (Yeah, I am old school, but I grew up when a 10 megabyte hard drive cost as much as a new car)


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

EasyBCD is, well, the easy way to dual boot a computer. 
As stated, first install XP, Create a secondary partition, and then install Windows 10 to that. When you boot the computer, you should be given the choice to boot into _Windows 10 _or_ Older Windows_. 
If you have a problem accessing XP from 10 or Verse Visa, then install _EasyBCD _and add the other OS to it's boot loader.


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