Installing a stand-alone XP system

There are many friends who did not keep the original XP operating system when installing Windows 7 system. After using Windows 7 for a while, they found that some work was done. It works better under XP. If you want to try the new system without affecting the normal work, you need to consider the Windows 7 or XP dual system, and the default Windows 7 environment is not able to directly install the lower version of the XP system. In fact, as long as a little change can be achieved.

Over-Mirror Recovery XP System

If you have previously installed XP, you may have used Ghost to back up. You can use this backup XP system's .gho system image to restore to other than C drive. Partitioning, come in 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. This example is 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, and open it with Notepad, replacing 1 in the string Partition(1) in the text with 2 (2 means that the .gho format XP system image will be restored to the D drive, if it is 3, it means E drive, and so on), and finally save the changes made to the system file boot.ini.

Step 2: Add XP menu startup items. Under Windows 7 system, first install the EasyBcd Han public version that comes with the distribution CD. After running, click the Add/Remove (Project) button on the left side of the EasyBCD main interface, then click the drop-down arrow to the right of the version to select Windows NT/2K/XP/2K3 option. Then type 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 name (the earlier version of Windows shown at c). Finally, click the Add and Save button in the interface shown in Figure 1 to add a menu option to start XP.

Step 3: Start with the WinPE CD of the computer fan and restore the XP system. Run WinPM7.0 under WinPE system, then right click on the C drive partition where win+r 7 is located, select Hide, and hide the partition. Run Ghost again and restore the XP image file that you have backed up to the partition where the D disk 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 on the C drive partition and select Show to display the hidden C drive partition.

After the above operation, 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. Use the GHost image to install. Before XP, it is necessary to hide the C drive partition where Windows 7 is located. Otherwise, the Ghost version of XP that was backed up beforehand can't be installed successfully.

Installing XP through the installation disk

If there is no Ghost backup of XP before, and you want to install XP under Windows 7, use the XP installation disk.

First put the XP installation disk into the CD-ROM drive, then perform the operation of installing XP, and install the XP operating system to any partition other than the C disk. After the installation is complete, you can only log in to XP for a while, because the WIndows 7 boot information is overwritten by the XP installer. You can use XP as a boot menu according to the method described in step 2 above. Once you have done this, log in to XP and run EasyBcd, then click the Manage Boot Project button, then check the newly-renewed Windows Vista Boot Project radio button 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.

PS: How to delete XP system in dual system

It is very easy to delete XP in XP+Windows 7 dual system: first format XP partition under Windows 7 system, then display All system files with hidden attributes and delete the three system files Boot.ini, Ntldr, Ntdetect.com in the root directory of the C drive, then run Easybcd, select the earlier version of Windows, and then click the delete and save button to restore Windows 7 single system.