Upgrade to Win11 to temporarily Dual-Boot with Win 10? Suggestions?

I have an 17" MSI Stealth GS75 9SH with 16gb RAM, 1Tgb SSD and Win 10. I would like to update to Win 11 in a clean install but temporarily keeping the Win 10 drive intact. I understand that this machine has multiple SSD M.2 slots, so I'm thinking I'd add another 1T ssd with a clean install of WIN 11 and make it dual-boot. This would allow me to use the machine in the current Win10 configuration as I slowly add the software packages on the Win 11 drive. When I have the Win 11 as I want it, I'll wipe the other drive and use it as a data drive. I've done this with a desktop I built, (Win7 to win10) but never with a laptop. Also, In the past, I remember there was a sequence to removing the dual-boot, but I can't remember how I solved it. Thoughts? Suggestions?

I think this is what you need.

I just did an In-Place Upgrade from Win 10 to Win 11, and kept all my files and programs.
However, my Win 10 install was fairly new and very clean...



In-Place Upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11...



Here is the short version of the In-place upgrade tutorial...

DISABLE non-Microsoft:
a) antivirus software
b) firewall software
c) drive encryption software

Make a full OS backup with a program like Macrium Reflect (free)
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

Get the Windows 11 ISO image and save it to your desktop...



Right click the ISO image and choose: MOUNT
Open File Explorer and you will see a new drive letter. It will "look" like a DVD optical drive.
Double click the new drive letter to open it.
Find setup.exe and double click it to start the in-place upgrade.

Choose the Keep personal files and apps option.

After it's all done... to UNmount the ISO image, right click the new drive letter and choose: EJECT.


The ONLY thing you will lose is some of your personalizations. Your programs and data will be intact.

One way is clone W10 installation to 2nd drive using tool like Macrium Reflect Free.

Then upgrade 2nd drive to Windows 11.

You can clean install to 2nd drive as well.

A very non intrusive way to do it is to create a virtual hard drive and install Windows to that (or clone to it).

1) create a virtual hard drive (say) D:\win11\W11.vhdx (or what ever drive letter /path / name on second drive) from disk management, size say 100 GB and initialise as a gpt drive.

2) For a clean install, boot from windows installation usb drive and st first screen press f10 to get to menu

type following


Then install W11 in normal way, selecting the virtual hard drive.

Then later if you want to remove it, just delete vhdx file and remove boot entry using msconfig.

cereberus said:

One way is clone W10 installation to 2nd drive using tool like Macrium Reflect Free.

Then upgrade 2nd drive to Windows 11.

You can clean install to 2nd drive as well.

A very non intrusive way to do it is to create a virtual hard drive and install Windows to that (or clone to it).

1) create a virtual hard drive (say) D:\win11\W11.vhdx (or what ever drive letter /path / name on second drive) from disk management, size say 100 GB and initialise as a gpt drive.

2) For a clean install, boot from windows installation usb drive and st first screen press f10 to get to menu

type following

Code:

diskpart
select vdisk file=d:\win11\win11.vhdx
attach vdisk
exit
exit

Then install W11 in normal way, selecting the virtual hard drive.

Then later if you want to remove it, just delete vhdx file and remove boot entry using msconfig.

Click to expand...

The advantage of doing it that way (via vhdx files) is you can select which Windows to boot via the standard Windows boot screen instead of selecting a boot drive via the computers BIOS menu.

E.G :


Cheers
jimbo

Wow.

Install the second SSD. Boot from the Windows 11 USB flash drive and run Windows setup just like you normally would. When you get to the list of disks and partitions to install to, just select the unallocated space on the newly installed SSD and click next.

If you don't end up with dual boot, it is one simple bcdboot command to set it up.

I like to K.I.S.S.

Thanks for the information guys. I still have to open the machine and see which SSD slot is available, etc. I get conflicting info. Some say two slots, some say 3. (1 SATA, two NVME)

NavyLCDR said:

If you don't end up with dual boot, it is one simple bcdboot command to set it up.

I like to K.I.S.S.

Click to expand...

Can you tell me more about this?

To avoid Windows 11 being on the second disk and the boot files on the first (making it difficult to remove a disk or swap disks later), I would disconnect my Windows 10 disk, install Windows 11 on second disk (or clone Windows 10 on second and upgrade to 11), and finally connect both and select where to boot with the F12 key at boot. I would go in BIOS, make Windows 11 disk first so it boots from there and change with F12 only when I wanted to boot in 10. I did that when dual booting XP and Vista, 7 and 8/10 and finally 10 and 11.

spapakons said:

To avoid Windows 11 being on the second disk and the boot files on the first (making it difficult to remove a disk or swap disks later), I would disconnect my Windows 10 disk, install Windows 11 on second disk (or clone Windows 10 on second and upgrade to 11), and finally connect both and select where to boot with the F12 key at boot. I would go in BIOS, make Windows 11 disk first so it boots from there and change with F12 only when I wanted to boot in 10. I did that when dual booting XP and Vista, 7 and 8/10 and finally 10 and 11.

Click to expand...

Why not use vhdx files --then when finished with the OS you don't want simply delete the vhdx file. Files can be on internal or external disks - doesn't matter. For example : standard graphical Windows boot menu. The Os'es don't have to be on the same disk or even the default boot disk. Saves messing around swapping disks and going into the BIOS. You can still have the Os'es on separate disks if you wish but of course if you try and boot that OS when the disk isn't connected you'll get an error !!!


Cheers
jimbo

Thanks again. I did the version mentioned by NavyLCDR in post #6 before I saw the other posts. That is what I'd done back in the day of XP/7, and 7/10. I did have the problem with the boot files associated with the old disk, and I forgot how I solved it. No idea what vhdx files are?

I'm in no rush to wipe the Win 10 system, but at some point I will. Then I'll be back for help it the boot gets killed.

VHDX files are virtual hard drives.

CalypsoArt said:

Thanks again. I did the version mentioned by NavyLCDR in post #6 before I saw the other posts. That is what I'd done back in the day of XP/7, and 7/10. I did have the problem with the boot files associated with the old disk, and I forgot how I solved it. No idea what vhdx files are?

I'm in no rush to wipe the Win 10 system, but at some point I will. Then I'll be back for help it the boot gets killed.

Click to expand...

VHDX files are "Virtual Hard Disks". They are just a file on your pc but it is a container that emulates a physical drive and acts exactly like a physical drive. When you boot from one, it looks exactly like you have booted from a physical drive.

They are really great on laptops where you often only have one physical drive.

I have several - each containing different Insider versions.

CalypsoArt said:

No idea what vhdx files are?

Click to expand...

A .vhdx file is a virtual hard drive. A very easy way to add one or more other OS installs without disturbing your currently installed Windows.

Got it. My laptop has 3 m.2 drive slots. (2 NVMe pci, and 1 SATA) I'll keep Virtual disk in mind if I decide to update my 13" laptop.

thanks again for all the help.

CalypsoArt said:

Thanks for the information guys. I still have to open the machine and see which SSD slot is available, etc. I get conflicting info. Some say two slots, some say 3. (1 SATA, two NVME)

Click to expand...

You have 4 SATA ports available on your board. Near the lower right-hand corner.



Here's a better view of them