How to install Ubuntu, Windows XP and Windows 7 from scratch as triple-boot system

Question

I'm currently running Windows XP, but have ordered Windows 7. I want to keep Windows XP on a separate partition, and install Ubuntu as well.

In which order should I install the OSs, and is there anything differing from an ordinary single-system install I should keep in mind? For example, does the order of partition make any difference? If I want to have the system drive as "C:" drive in both Win XP and Win 7, what should I do?

Solution 1

You should install Windows XP first. After that, install Windows 7; its bootloader will take care of XP as well. Also, Windows 7 considers whatever partition it's on as C:\ (at least that's what happened to me).

Lastly, install Ubuntu. Its bootloader will detect all the other 2 operation systems. Have fun!

Solution 2

You should always go from the oldest to the newest, additionally from the "Microsoft"iest to the more open ones.

Windows XP writes its own bootloader into the MBR, regardless of what is installed (With the exception of older Windows versions, like Win98)

Windows 7 will find XP and add it to it's own bootloader.

Ubuntu, in turn, will add the Windows bootloader to its own boot menu (grub), which will make selecting a windows version a bit more complicated (worst case: 4 keystrokes) but it is definitely easiest to install.

You should think about transferring data between the operating systems too, so maybe leave a partition (I would suggest 2-10GB, depending on your hard drive size) for data exchange and format it in FAT32.

A last suggestion: If you no not really need to install every operating system in its native partition, maybe you could use the free Sun VirtualBox to virtualize the operating systems which do not need full native access to the hardware. If you want to play games, I would suggest that the gaming OS should be the host system.

The bonus you get from this setup: snapshots and easy full system backups!

Solution 3

Alex has suggested installing Windows in order from oldest to newest. This is probably the best suggestion now, but in the past I've done things the other way around as some Windows installers won't install in a separate partition if there is already a Windows installation detected. I don't think this is a problem anymore but in the old days the first readable partition was always C: and Windows always needed to be on C:. Thus you could install Windows NT on NTFS, Windows 9x on Fat32 and Dos/Windows3.11 on Fat16 in that order and each OS would think it was drive C: when it installed. The only drawback is getting a bootloader that recognizes the different OSes, but I had IBM's boot manager (from OS/2) which was very easy to configure. In your case now I'd setup the default bootloader to boot all the other OSes; if Windows shows up first I'd configure the boot.ini to have entries for the other Windowses and Linux, and if Grub shows up first I'd configure Grub to boot Linux and Windows.

Comments

[Admin]

an observation, in reply to the above: my windows 7 thinks it's on F:.

[Tom Robinson]

+1 I've deleted my identical answer as yours is slightly clearer

[alex]

You could have kept it and improved it. Diversity is always welcomed :)

[Tom Robinson]

Agreed. As a general rule I always install Windows first, from oldest (e.g. XP) to newest (e.g. 7) then finish off with the Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu).

[Gnoupi]

If installing Ubuntu, does it really matter to install the Windows versions in a particular order ? I mean, if it's going to detect them separately anyway, there shouldn't be a problem with that, no ?

[Henrique Zacchi]

@Gnoupi - Yes, but if you install the older Windows versions first, the newer ones will find them automatically.

[alex]

It's not very easy to install Windows XP after Windows 7. I've tried to do it, but I always found it a bit awkward. Your best bet is to install the older ones first.

[Admin]

No windows 7 does not consider whatever partition as it's C:\, mine is working perfectly on E:\

[simon]

About the data exchange partition: is it really needed - I thought Ubuntu can read and write NTFS partitions safely nowadays?

[brandstaetter]

It is not extremely necessary, but if you want to read files in Windows, which are stored on the Ubuntu drive, you need third party addons, which may break something... It really depends on how you want to use your setup.

[quack quixote]

+1, good tip regarding the older OS's; as you say, not really necessary anymore, but from what i recall that's an accurate picture of the old boot-many-MS-OS's situation.

[Fake Name]

fs-driver.org can mount ext* partitions from windows. That way you don't need a purpose specific partition for moving things from one OS to another. It does make it easier to break your linux install, though.

[ptikobj]

Now, I already have Ubuntu 10.04 installed and want to install Windows 7. Then, to be able to also boot Ubuntu, I will only have to restore grub with a Ubuntu Live Disk, right?