Vista (dual boot with ubuntu) upgrade to Windows 7

G

G101

Member
Hello,

I was reading on Windows 7 upgrade and I notice that the Windows 7 MBR is different somehow to previous MBR. It's supposed to give you an option to boot Windows 7 or rollback or something.

I currently have a dual hard drive, dual boot Vista (64bit) and Ubuntu (64bit) and I am using EasyBCD. So I have the option to boot into Linux or Windows using the Windows MBR.

Now, if I upgrade my Vista to Windows 7, what's gonna happen to my Ubuntu boot option with EasyBCD. Isn't the upgrade to windows 7 supposed to keep all your programs and settings working?

How can I upgrade my Vista to Windows 7, and have my EasyBCD give me the option to boot Windows 7 or Ubuntu using the Windows MBR? Or will it keep the mbr as it is now?

Thanks guys.
 
Remember W7 is only a Beta, and might not work with your Vista software. (My dual channel digital TV card's native software for example).
Why don't you dual-boot it rather than replace Vista? It won't work after 1st August, and you'll need to pay for a working version at that point or reinstall your Vista.
The MBR should be identical to Vista
The Master Boot Record (MBR) sitting invisibly on the 1st few blocks of your HDD, contains the Initial Program Loader (IPL), which will search for the "active" flag and find in the bootsector of that partition a small program (PBR) which looks for the Vista boot manager program (bootmgr).
Both systems use the "bootmgr" (though slightly cosmetically different, they're functionally identical)
Whether you add W7 as a new boot option or replace Vista, the BCD should continue to work as before, with all your previous boot options available.
 
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Ah, I see.

Actually, I am not going to replace my vista with the beta w7 very soon. This is my main computer, but in any case I was wondering (perhaps too much ahead of time?) what would happen to my current settings and I wanted to see if anyone had already done this (vista + linux dual boot using easybcd, then upgrading vista to w7).

Obviously I will end up buying the upgrade to windows 7, no doubt about it. I just wanted to know ahead of time. Perhaps I could try it on my old computer.

In any case, thanks for your reply. I guess when the time comes to move to windows 7 (can't wait) I can just upgrade and everything will be like before, especially my dual boot options with ubuntu.

Thanks and cheers!

(PS. And I take it that the option to roll back in the MBR windows 7 offers is just part of the beta and will go away when it releases)
 
What would happen is your entries should still be intact with Windows 7 as the default. It shouldn't touch your Ubuntu entry, but if it does, you should be able to re-add with EasyBCD again. Some entries, like an entry added for XP for example, may be renamed the default of "Earlier version of Windows" and the timeout may be reset, but they should still work and with the help of EasyBCD can easily be fixed back to your liking.

I'm with Terry here. Don't upgrade your everyday stable OS until Windows 7 final is released and problems in the upgrade proccess have been addressed.
 
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