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I have a system with Windows 7 and Windows XP, and today I have installed the Windows 8 Developer Preview into a spare partition (that I leave for a few months without any important data there). When booting from a bootable device and doing the installation, I format it so that it's a clean and fresh partition. The installing process finished, and now I have a boot screen with Windows 8 Developer Preview and Windows 7.
My Windows XP boot entry simply disappeared. So, I have used EasyBCD to modify the boot loader and reactivated the Windows XP boot entry from the system, and it displays Windows XP there. After I did that, I restarted my PC.
The only thing left is Windows 7 and my dear old Windows XP; as now Windows 8 Developer Preview disappeared from the boot menu. EasyBCD can't detect it anymore - a few times I logged into Windows 7 and tried to run it afterward. Please note that all versions are installed on separate partitions.
How do I get the Windows 8 Developer Preview boot menu back and get it to also list Windows 7 and Windows XP?
You installed a *Developer Preview* of Windows 8 alongside Windows 7 and Windows XP? That's just a disaster waiting to happen. – qJake – 2011-09-16T17:40:47.830
1@SpikeX: Why is that so? They are perfectly separated and the boot loader of the latter are backwards compatible. So, you can have as much different operating systems running as you want... – Tamara Wijsman – 2011-09-16T17:46:36.233
1@SpikeX:
Not a serious problem or disaster here. The problem is just I only boot from 1 of groups:
**Windows Developer Preview** (8) and **Windows 7**
OR**Windows 7** and **Windows XP**
And anytime regular repairing one of groups above, the others will fail. I just want 3 those Windows multiboot availabe at the same time. Is it illogical question? No, I think it's a valid question. – Edward – 2011-09-16T17:52:06.477
It's Developer preview doesn't automatically mean it doesn't support dual/multiboot or so on... and actually it does support dual Windows 7 & and 8 Preview at the same time. So why not further OS version (XP will no longer get official support from MS)?... I can't ensure this certain case in current time so I ask here. Nothing wrong with my question. – Edward – 2011-09-16T17:52:18.083
@user98110: I'm running Windows 8 Developer Preview from a VHD, perhaps an alternative option if my answer doesn't work? But the BCD should still support Windows XP, as I know people that use Windows XP and Windows 8 Developer Preview side-by-side... – Tamara Wijsman – 2011-09-16T17:59:49.207