CIS 170F: Windows 7 Administration

Week 2

Intalling Windows 7
Windows 7 Installation Types
Dual Boot Installations and Virtualization

  • Dual boot installation is a term to describe when two operating systems are installed on the same computer and you can switch between them.
    • To perform a dual boot installation, the boot loader of an operating system must support dual boot installations.
    • The boot loader is the first component loaded from the hard drive during the boot process. It is responsible for starting the operating system.
    • After you install each operating system, you can choose the operating system that you will boot to during the boot process. You will see a boot selection screen that asks you to choose which operating system you want to boot.

      • Read more about the booting process at:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_loader.

    • Dual booting is typically required for two purposes:
      • Using unsupported applications
      • Keeping configuration data separate
    • Windows 7 can perform a dual boot with almost any operating system.

      • The Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store contains boot information parameters that were previously found in boot.ini in older versions of Windows. To edit the boot options in the BCD store, use the bcdedit utility, which can be launched only from a command prompt.

      Bcdedit commands for dual-booting

      Command Explanation
      /creatstore Creates a new empty boot configuration data store.
      /default Allows you to specify which operating system will start when the time-out expires.
      /deletevalue Allows you to delete a specified element from a boot entry.
      /displayorder Shows the display order that the boot manager uses when showing the display order to the user.
      /export Allows you to export the contents of the system store into a file.
      /import Restores the system store by using the data file previously generated by using the /export option.
      /set Allows you to set an entry option value.
      /store Specifies the store to be used.
      /timeout Specifies the amount of time used before the system boots into the default operating system.

  • Virtualization software uses the main operating system as a host to run as many guest operating systems as you need.
    • Some of the advantages of using virtualization software include:
      • Faster access to other operating systems
      • Multiple virtual machines at the same time
      • Simpler disk configuration
      • Snapshots and undo disks
      • Virtualized hardware

      Read more about virtualization in Windows 7 at:

      http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/default.aspx.