Hello,
I found this site by googling the above topic. I found one post where someone was trying to do this and ran into all kinds of grief. I think the person succeeded but it wasn't really clear. I am a consultant - I need to use Windows 7 and Windows 10 for my work but for personal stuff I like Linux and have had a triple boot "system" for a number of years using Puppy Linux(currently Slacko63). People keep telling me to try Mint - I have and I kind of like it - but I'm worried installing it will cause all kinds of problems. I just went into the install and it offered me the option to install Mint along side Win 7 but it didn't mention or show anything about Win 10. I had already created a partition called Mint to go along with 2 others, Windows7 and Windows10, but the install seemed to want to just find empty space. I did try and point it towards the Mint partition, and maybe formatted that as ext4 but at that point I decided to not go any further until I have a good answer to the question above. With Puppy Linux it has been nice and simple but Puppy is a lot different than Mint or OpenSuse or Ubuntu. So can it be done EASILY. (If so, where do I find instructions?) Thanks.

Why not install Linux on bare metal and all Windows versions you want in virtual machines.

Windows 7 usually installed using MBR. Windows 10 generally uses UEFI so the first thing you need to determine is whether you are using an MBR or UEFI boot method for your windows install. Whichever you are using for windows you must also use with Mint. Problems you will encounter if you mix them are explained at the site below.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Don't use the Install Alongside option. Use the manual install method which in Mint will be called Something else.
There isn't really any point in creating a partition from windows because it can't create a Linux filesystem. You will need to format for Linux anyway so just shrink your windows partition(s) to create unallocated space for Mint. The link below explains how to install Ubuntu 14.04 and its installer is the same as the Mint installer so if you are using MBR following the instructions should work. It doesn't explain UEFI so if you have UEFI it won't help.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/u...all-guide.html

I have all three of those systems installed and booting plus a number of others. If you don't have any experience installing Linux then it probably won't be easy.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you to those who responded. Vancek, your information is very useful and I am going to review it carefully before I go any further. Much appreciated!

Hi yancek (and others), I wish to do something similar. I'm trying to triple-boot Win 10, 7 and Ubuntu. I inherited a Win 10 laptop from my roommate. I prefer W7 but wanted to keep the valid install so I shrunk that partition down and put Win 7 on. Then I decided why stop there and installed Ubuntu as well. All three on the same hard drive. Was working okay until I started playing around with partitions and booting; now I can't get it back into W10, but that's not my main question.
The problem I'm running into is with partitions - the Win 10 install made a bunch of primary partitions (system, recovery, etc) and there wasn't any remaining for the Linux install (you can only have four primary partitions I believe). Hence I made the Win 10 and 7 partitions extended to install Ubuntu to primary but then it stopped booting into Win 10. Grub only "sees" Ubuntu and Win 7 now.

Bit complicated but basically my questions are as follows:

If I were to start over (i.e. fix the booting with recovery media and/or reinstalling OS's from scratch) which order should I go in? Win 10 first, followed by Win 7, followed by Ubuntu? Or some other order? Which partitions should be primary vs. extended? Should I use Grub as my main bootloader?

Thanks

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You need to decide whether you want a Legacy/msdos install or GPT. If you use GPT, you can have up to 128 primary partitions. If you install Legacy/msdos, you can have only four primary partitions and use one of them to create logical partitions. Any Linux can be installed on a logical partition. Windows can be installed on a logical partition but it's boot files must be on a primary partition. The second windows install will overwrite the boot files of the first windows install and should create a boot entry for both. You must install all systems Legacy/msdos or all EFI/GPT or you will not be able to boot all from one menu.

Install the older windows (7) first then windows 10, then Ubuntu.

It is possible to install windows 7 UEFI/GPT but it isn't that simple and you will have to do some research on it. You might put it on a virtual machine either inside 10 or Ubuntu. If you install windows 7 in Legacy, use the windows 10 Custom install option. Read the link below on dual booting windows and Ubuntu UEFI.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

Great thanks. Very helpful. When referring to "GPT" (partition table) I'm assuming you also mean UEFI (firmware type)? It's a fairly old laptop and unfortunately it was running Legacy BIOS. Not sure if the hardware supports UEFI or not, but since Win 10 was already installed in Legacy mode, I just went with that. Hence the firmware is currently Legacy BIOS and I'm assuming the partition table is MBR (unfortunately :/ ) I will reboot now and look in the BIOS settings for Secure Boot though.
EDIT: Just checked the BIOS and there is a setting for UEFI Boot Support that is currently set to Disabled. In order to switch to GPT/UEFI, I'm assuming I'd have to completely wipe the hard drive and start from scratch?
EDIT2: also saw the Windows boot menu after GRUB. Seems it comes and goes...

I found this a bit confusing... If you install Windows 7 first, which typically uses Legacy mode, how do you then use UEFI mode for Win 10? Or are you suggesting, if possible, to install W7 first and force UEFI? Also installing Windows 7 first would make W7 the C: drive and W10 the D: drive. You're saying this is the most stable / easiest installation procedure? Is that just because W7 will overwrite the W10 boot settings, or are there additional considerations?

To complicate things just a bit, the W10 OS was an update from an original W7 install on this machine. Hence I don't have the installation media (although I imagine I could create a recovery DVD). I do however actually have the W7 disk if that makes things easier.

It's been a while since I played around with this machine, but I think what happened was I converted the Windows 7 partition to extended in order to free up a primary partition for Linux, perhaps because I wanted to boot all three from the windows bootloader (using EasyBCD). Now Win 10 and 7 are both on the same extended (primary) partition, and only one appears to be bootable.

I'm curious if I could get rid of one of the inordinate Windows 10 partitions (e.g. Recovery or SYS).

Any other ideas?

You don't. If you have GPT with windows, you need UEFI. If you use Legacy for one windows, you need to use it for both. It is possible to install most major Linux distributions on a GPT drive and NOT use UEFI. From everything I have read, this won't work with windows. The first link below explains how to create a windows 7 UEFI bootable usb. The second link explains the installation process.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/su...stallation.pdf

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...ased-computer/

If you boot windows 7, it will show itself on the C:\ drive and windows 10:\ (or other windows partition) as D:\ drive.
If you boot windows 10, it will show itself on the C"\ drive and windows 7:\ (or other windows partition) as D:\ drive.

No, I don't think there is an 'easy' way to do this. If you want to boot all systems (7, 10 and Mint) from the same boot menu, they must all be either UEFI or Legacy/MBR. If you install one system UEFI and another Legacy, you may be able to switch booting to another system but you would have to do so from the BIOS.
The suggestion to install 7 first is because windows bootloaders have historically been backward compatible so the newest release would be installed last and would overwrite the boot files of the earlier windows but create a menu entry for it. I haven't dual-booted windows UEFI systems so I don't know if that process is the same and I can't help with that.

In that case, I would think installing windows 7 to a separate partition in Legacy mode would be easier. Not sure how that would work and you might be better off going to a windows forum to ask about dual booting windows 7 with an already installed windows 10.

Pretty much any Linux can be installed to a logical partition so that wasn't necessary.

Since you did an upgrade of 7 to 10, do you actually have two windows systems? Can you post the output of: sudo fdisk -l while booted into Mint?
Not sure why you want to get rid of one of the windows partitions? You only need a primary partition for the boot files not the system files.

Okay that's what I thought. Just checking, because in theory one could also do a boot repair from within Win 10. But I'm glad you answered the question and I like your suggestions Just wanted to know the reasoning so I can understand.


Yes that's what I did initially. Worked fine. Aside from not booting to Win10 (which is my own fault), what I have now is working actually (could probably figure out a way in if I needed to). Anyway, now I'm trying to decide if I want to "start over" (i.e. convert to UEFI and reinstall everything) and determine the optimal way of installing stuff and/or where I went wrong.
Sounds like the "optimal" way of doing this is probably starting with UEFI so you don't run into the primary partition problem and Win 10 can install as many recovery partitions as it needs to without affecting anything else. UEFI also theoretically boots faster. But it will take at least a few hours of work, and I'd need to backup all the user files and stuff. So that's my thought process at this point.

Yes Linux installed fine but I believe the M$ boot loader will only boot to systems installed on primary partitions. Hence I was chain-booting, which was fine, but I was playing around with EasyBCD and trying to find a better way. Maybe I should have left well enough alone. But, that's how we learn right?


I didn't do the upgrade, it was like that when I got it. But yes, I have two separate Windows systems. I actually reached out to the laptop manufacturer and told them I didn't like Win 10 and they sent me a Windows 7 "recovery" DVD (had to pay $20 or something). Don't know if you noticed but I attached a screenshot of the Disk Management utility in my first post. Can do the fdisk later.
Again, I was playing around with the partitioning because I was trying to change the way the computer booted and the boot managers / boot loaders were running into issues having some systems on primary and others on extended partitions. Don't really recall the specifics at this point, but I'm sure I tried lots of things before messing with the partitions.

No, that isn't accurate. You need the boot files on a primary partition that is marked active/boot and the system can be on a logical partition. This has been the case going back at least to W98. My first experience with this was with a system with W98 and later installing W2K. They had very different boot files and the W2K install wrote its boot files to the primary partition on which W98 was installed and W2K had entries for and booted both systems. W2K installed itself to a logical partition (sda5 in Linux). With later versions of windows using BCD, it is difficult to know because the boot file names are the same on the different windows versions.

I think that would require removing the "easy" part from your question if the links above on installing windows 7 are accurate. Haven't done that so don't know.

I haven't used EasyBCD in over ten years due to its limitations although I believe it is now possible to use it on UEFI. If you want to use EasyBCD, you probably need to go to their forums at the neosmart site or a windows forum.

You might download and run boot repair in Ubuntu if you don't resolve this issue. Go to their site at the link below, use the 2nd option to use the ppa and run it per instructions on the page selecting the option to Create BootInfo Summary and do NOT try to make any repairs. This outputs a link which you can post here for members to view or review it yourself.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Were you actually ever able to boot windows 10 after installing windows 7? If not, that might be the 'backward compatibility' issue.

I got win10 and linux, MBR old school boot, no GPT mbr (dos) partition table. it works just fine, that is not a , you have to install windows10 as UEFI thing.

If you got a big enough hdd, yes, you can install win10, win7, and linux, keeping in mind Linux is last to get installed.

windows will/ or should put the other windows into its boot list for more than one windows, and Linux, grub picks up windows, and linux.

Yes that's what I did at first. Again this was working fine. Can't remember anymore exactly why I changed the partitions.


Okay... I'm working from memory here. As I recall I thought I needed the Grub stuff on a primary partition at the beginning of the Linux install (rather than on the MBR) so that I could use another boot manager and/or simplify the booting process in some way. Could have just been an issue with EasyBCD then.


Yes, worked fine at first, before I started messing with booting / partitions.

Anyway, this question has blosssomed into more than intended. I actually just wanted to know the "optimal" way to install these three operating systems and have them working nice together. I appreciate all the input though!

if you have more than one hdd, you can install grub onto that other one, and install your systems on the first one, then in BIOS have it look to the 2nd first to boot from and the 1st one second to boot from, that way you can always get into some kind of OS.

mod: just seen your image.

I'd wipe it, the 1st one, using windows, which ever one you want to install first. have it partition enough space for it, including that extra partition(s) they take, install it, leaving the rest raw, second windows, do the same for it, then Linux doing the same for it.
creating your partitions before / as you're doing your installs of each OS.

keeping in mind you only get 8 partitions total mbr.

first three are primary, 4th is a place holder for your other 4 extended, this way you can maximize your partitions using mbr.

looking at mine I still have two more partitions I can create if I need/want to.

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Thanks; this all looks straightforward enough. Just create a bootable UEFI install disk then start it a specific way. I had to install from a Windows 7 image anyway because the DVD was too slow (also was getting an error about the DVD drive driver which was fixed by copying the CD to HD).
These instructions don't really complicate the install process much IMO.

I thought you could basically put as many logical partitions as you want inside the last (fourth) primary partition with a DOS-based scheme?


Interesting... Will look more into this later. Any reason for the 1MB unformatted space?


So in summary there are several good ways to do what I asked (although the install order does matter for boot reasons as @yancek indicated), and there's no real advantage to having Linux on a primary vs. extended partition, is that correct?

I think I will first remove the Linux install (for now) and try converting both Windows installs back to primary, then repair the boot sector with one of the Windows installs (maybe W10 would be best?). If I'm successful then I'll reinstall Linux, but this time on an extended partition, and just chain-boot from Grub as that seems like the easiest solution (although I wish there was more flexibility with boot loaders / managers).
Also just to clarify - when installing Linux, I should install Grub to the MBR (i.e. sda1) and NOT the Linux partition (i.e. sda5), is that correct?

If that doesn't work, I'll basically be forced to wipe the drive anyway, at which point I might as well start from scratch with UEFI from the get-go.

Let me know if I missed anything. Will report back if I recall any more specifics about why I went with the partition scheme I did.

Cheers!