Windows 10 is considered by many as a fine and good operating system

Windows 10 is considered by many as a fine and good operating system. Still, the OS which suffered from teething and is far from any software compatible with it. Therefore, to install the necessary still like Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, or even Linux.

In this article we explain how you can install Windows alongside another operating system 10. We focus this on Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu LTS 14:04. Before starting the installation, we are going to prepare some things, so you will soon not get any surprises.

BIOS or UEFI
The first preparation that you should take is that you'll need check if your existing Windows 10 boot into the BIOS or UEFI. This information we need later in the process. This can easily find out by pressing Windows Key + R. Then type msinfo32 , and press Enter. In the system overview that appears, you'll see in BIOS mode either UEFI or Legacy , the latter option indicates that you use a BIOS.

Want Windows 7 along with Windows 10 start turning, you have the option to disable Secure Boot into the UEFI, or can not boot Windows 7. Ubuntu has been for some time supporting Secure Boot and there can therefore easily handle it. Windows 8 has also no problems. Make sure that the Fast Boot option is disabled in UEFI.

In Windows system information, you can easily see if your PC is using UEFI or BIOS. Is UEFI, then put just Fastboot and - if you're installing Windows 7 -also Secure Boot.
installation files
What you have further need is at least one USB stick to boot from. Here we place the installation files of Windows 7, 8.1 or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on. You can download the Windows isos here to download. Make sure you have a product key for the appropriate Windows version. If you fill, you can use the Windows retrieving installation. If you have a DVD of Windows, you can use it of course, and you can skip the steps for the USB Flash Drive (step 7). Ubuntu you can of course here justified. Click on Download / Ubuntu Desktop and download Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS , we use the 64bit version.

On the Microsoft Web site you have the opportunity to win the Windows 8.1- and Windows 7 installation files.
The same license?
If you have upgraded your old Windows7- or -8.1 installation to Windows 10, you use new install the same product key as your old Windows installation. It would have been very nice if it would be possible to use now Windows 7 or 8.1 in addition to Windows 10 with the same product key, but unfortunately, Microsoft will not allow it. So you have to come in a different way a license, but because Windows can be activated with the same license.

What you can possibly do is to be called Windows Insider. You may use a test version of Windows 10 with some restrictions. Deactivate This way you can Windows and reuse your license for Windows 7 / 8.1. This is at your own risk, the trail is not always stable.

The final requirement is that you have enough free space available on the hard drive. This can be easily checked by opening your browser and clicking on this PC . Then you look for the disk with the Windows flag, which will almost always drive C:are you and check the amount of disk space. For Windows 7 and 8.1, you need at least 60 GB and of course you want still keep some space on your Windows 10 system, so with 80 GB free space you get all somewhere. Ubuntu LTS 14:04 30 GB more than enough, so then you get 50 GB of free disk space minimum.

Backup
Before you really going to start, it is a must to make a backup of your Windows installation. Use your standard backup software, or the Windows built-in backup feature. The only thing you need for the latter, a second hard drive or an external USB drive. If you made the backup once, you have the opportunity later to restore the current state Windows 10 without problems, if there are something went wrong.

You start the backup as follows. Open Control Panel > System and Security . Click Backup and Restore (Windows 7) . Left click Create a system image , choose whether you want to store the backup on a hard drive or a network location and click Next . Automatically be included with all the disks in the backup so click on Start Backup to start the backup. If you want to restore in case of emergency backup, you will need another computer to create a bootable Windows 10 USB stick. Then you get from that installation option to restore the backup.

Pati Tion Master
We are going to partition the hard drive. If you want to install the second operating system on a separate hard drive, you can skip this step. To partition our hard drive, we use EASEUS Partition Master Free. Windows can use Disk Management Code, but EASEUS is far superior. You download the program to www.easeus.com go and choose the top for Partition Manager . Then click back Partition Master Free to Download and then again at the Free version Download . Run the downloaded .exe file. Perform the installation, and make sure you in the wizard option to EASEUS Todo Backup Free to install uncheck. Click Finish to open Partition Master and select Launch Application , which opens the main screen.

Make sure you remove the check mark when installing the Partition Master to install it free tool Todo Backup Free, you see that do not need.
drive partitoneren
Select the partition you want to shrink, which will probably be the partition on which Windows is installed now, which is often C: drive (the same drive that you saw in your browser with the Windows flag). If your computer has a D: drive has plenty of free space, use that partition. Click it with the right mouse and select Resize / Move Partition . You can drag the top bar and looks vary the disk. Note that you are still left with enough free space for your current Windows installation is recommended at least 20 GB. Once you are satisfied, click OK . The window closes. You can again check the apply changes on the screen. Really all right, top left click on Apply . The computer may need to be restarted, so do it. After the reboot, a screen appears EASEUS partition is reduced and created free space. The computer then restarts again and you're back in Windows, ready for the next step.

You can create the disk by dragging the green area to the left until you find it enough.
Bootable USB stick
We are going to prepare our USB stick and the Windows installation files in places. For this we use a simple program called Rufus. You can use this program to download . Then in the middle of the page on Rufus 2.5 Portable . Download the file and run it. Click No when the update control, seen now as unnecessary. Insert your USB stick into the computer, and it automatically appears in Rufus. Click on Create a bootable disk and pick out the option ISO image . Click the icon next to it. Then browse to the ISO file of Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS that you put in step 2. Leave the other options as they are, so the file will automatically be adapted to Windows or Ubuntu and the USB stick will also be suitable for both UEFI and BIOS systems. Click Create to create the bootable USB stick.

Booting from USB
Now the USB drive has been created, you can restart the computer, where you go to your PC boot menu. Often you can do that by quickly pressing the F12, F11 or DEL key. You'll see a list of devices that can run from you. If you have a UEFI system, you may find that your USB drive appears twice: once normal and once with the text 'UEFI' it. Make sure you stick the boot via UEFI option, so the plant will actually take place with UEFI. To install Windows you just read further, you get started with Ubuntu, you can skip to Step 12.