Pathik Shah

Many Windows XP users have decided to skip Windows Vista and jump on directly to the Windows 7 bandwagon when it releases. Windows 7 RTM is going to officially release on August 6 and the final version will release by October. If you already have Windows XP and want to install Windows 7 on another partition and use both XP and Windows 7 in a dual boot configuration, you just need to install Windows 7 and it will automatically create a boot loader entry for the Windows XP installation. If that does not happen, you can manually add Windows XP to Windows 7 Boot Menu.

To Add Windows XP to Windows 7 Boot Menu

Assuming that you have Windows XP installed on D: and Windows 7 on C:

Open an Elevated Command Prompt and type

C:>bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d “Windows XP”

This will create a boot loader entry using NTLDR for your Windows XP installation.

C:>bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=D:C:>bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr

This will point the boot entry to your Windows XP partition – D: , set the path to NTLDR and add it to the end of the boot menu options.

You can view the changes by selecting the Boot tab in Run > MSCONFIG.

Check out this tutorial to see How To Add Windows Vista to Windows 7 Boot Menu

You can also use EasyBCD to edit and manage your bootloader entries using a GUI.

Via Kombitz

If you have Windows Vista installed and have installed Windows 7 in another partition using a clean install, the Windows 7 bootloader will automatically add an entry for Windows Vista.  By any chance, if you have managed to screw this up and want to add the Windows Vista boot option to Windows 7’s bootloader, just follow these steps.

Assuming that you installed Windows 7 on C: and Windows Vista was installed on D:

To Add Windows Vista Boot Option to Windows 7 Boot Menu

Open Command Prompt as an administrator or an elevated prompt and type

C:>bcdedit

This will list the current boot manager configuration. Note down the identifier key which is in the format

{e96c8447-8171-11de-9007-b10454ebd432} or something like it.

C:>bcdedit /copy {current} /d “Windows Vista”

This will copy the current bootloader into a new entry for Windows Vista. However selecting it will still boot into Windows 7.

C:>bcdedit /set {e96c8447-8171-11de-9007-b10454ebd432} device partition=D:

C:>bcdedit /set {e96c8447-8171-11de-9007-b10454ebd432} osdevice partition=D:

These two commands will set the new boot entry to point to your Vista partition and load from it.

You can reboot and see the changes. You can also Run > MSCONFIG and check out the entries in the Boot tab.

Check out this tutorial to see How To Add Windows XP to Windows 7 Boot Menu

As Manan pointed out, You can also use EasyBCD to edit and manage your bootloader entries using a GUI.