Easy BCD and Windows 10

S

SantyAnno

Member
I have a number of 64 bit Win 7 partitions which I manage with Easy BCD; all these instances of Win 7 have the same serial number. I have just installed a 32 bit version of Win 7 with a different serial number with the intention of upgrading to Win 10 with a view to just seeing how it looks and works etc.

If I do this upgrade how will this affect my existing Win 7 boot menu; will all the different partitions be visible when I boot up? Also does Easy BCD work within Win 10?

Sorry if this is a simplistic question but I have spent a lot of effort to ensure that any serious problems with one partition can be overcome by moving to another one and just what to make sure that Win 10 is not going to screw things up.

Thanks
 
Technically speaking, I believe it's a violation of the EULA to run multiple copies of the same OS, even on one PC, but afaik the OS can't detect that situation as it could do if the same serial number OS were being used on different PCs, and hosts of techies make use of that anomaly to "bend" the rules.
Updating one of the clones from 7 to 10 would probably invalidate all the others, but if the updated 7 is a unique serial number, it shouldn't affect any of the clones.
You won't be able to dual-boot 10 from any of the 7's though.
The bootmgr is backward compatible, not forward.
i.e. a new Windows can dual-boot an older but not vice-versa.
You will need to boot from W10 in future and add entries to its BCD for all of the other W7's
 
Terry60 said:
Technically speaking, I believe it's a violation of the EULA to run multiple copies of the same OS, even on one PC, but afaik the OS can't detect that situation as it could do if the same serial number OS were being used on different PCs, and hosts of techies make use of that anomaly to "bend" the rules.
Updating one of the clones from 7 to 10 would probably invalidate all the others, but if the updated 7 is a unique serial number, it shouldn't affect any of the clones.
You won't be able to dual-boot 10 from any of the 7's though.
The bootmgr is backward compatible, not forward.
i.e. a new Windows can dual-boot an older but not vice-versa.
You will need to boot from W10 in future and add entries to its BCD for all of the other W7's
Click to expand...
 
Terry,
Thanks for that, I have unexpectedly been away and hence the delay in responding.

I have a number of supplementary questions which perhaps you could help me with.

I understand from what you are saying that after this partial upgrade that only boot up to a WIN 10 start up menu will be possible but from which I will have the option for WIN10 or my existing varilous WIN 7 partitions?

If I wanted to, would I be able to revert to my previous WIN 7 only boot up? How would this be possible?

If not, would my BCD WIN 7 USB boot disc still allow me to access all my WIN 7 partitions?
 
If you boot from any copy of W7, you will be able to boot any other copy of W7.
You will also be able to add a BCD entry for W10, but if you try booting it, the boot will fail when W7's bootmgr fails to recognize the digital signature of W10's (newer) Winload.exe
If you boot via W10's BCD, you can boot all of the W7s because W10's bootmgr is full backward compatible with the (older) digital signature of the W7 Winload.
Being able to resume booting from W7 of course assumes that you install the new W7/W10 upgrade in such a way that it creates its own boot files, so that the old W7 boot files still exist to switch back to in the BIOS.
I'm not saying you must do this, but you asked the question "If I wanted to, would I be able to revert to ..." in which case you would need to.
You don't need to, but if you want to, you must ensure that the new W7/W10 can't "see" the other W7s when you install it. This means that W7/10 will not automatically add itself to the pre-existing BCD (and update the boot files to W10 level), and you will subsequently need to manually add entries for all the other W7s to the new BCD.
 
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