Best Test Setup for Windows 7

October 30, 2008 11:38 AM

What is the best/safest Windows 7 Test Setup? Virtualization? Partition an HD?

I'm currently downloading Windows 7 and I'm trying to think of the best way to test it out without ruining my current setup.

My main concern with partitioning part of my laptop's hard drive is that the boot loader will overwrite vista's and I'll get locked out of my maching.

The other option is virtualization, but Vista is a huge pain to virtualize and I assume that W7 will be the same way.

Any thoughts on the bootloader issue? What has the hive been using to test W7?

posted by xxnopiratesxx to Technology (5 answers total)

Wha? I have Vista running in vmplayer (VMware) on Linux and it works fine. Unless you want to test driver compatibility I would suggest using a VM 100%.
posted by GuyZero at 12:02 PM on October 30, 2008

I'd say virtualization. I've never had and issue with installing Vista under VMWare, I don't see why you'd have any problems with Windows 7.
posted by wongcorgi at 12:06 PM on October 30, 2008

Response by poster: Excellent, that definitely abates many of my fears. Does W7 still need 15gb's like Vista did?
posted by xxnopiratesxx at 12:12 PM on October 30, 2008

The latest Windows 7 build works fine in VM Ware, just remove the default virtual SCSI hdd and add an IDE hdd or it won't find a disk to install on during setup.
posted by starzero at 3:12 PM on October 30, 2008

If you virtualize you probably won't get hardware accelerated graphics.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:29 PM on October 30, 2008