Dual boot Win 7 / Win 10?

I've been sniffing around to perhaps update my DAW before recording season starts, and was disappointed to see that Pro Tools is strictly WIn 10. Thinking that I may end up updating my Studio One to the new version, 5, I had a look at it - and it's Win 10 as well !!! ARRRHHH. :mad:
If I have to go to Win 10, I may end up at Pro Tools after all. Anyway, can I install a dual boot system so that I won't lose W7 when W10 installs? Is that a matter of installing to a particular partition? And all the other music software on the Win 7, would that have to be uninstalled and reinstalled, and in W10 version, or not? And would W10 Professional have to be purchased?

Hey, I'm a guitar player, not a hacker. :o

Thanks for any advice.
 
Sure, you can dual boot Win7 and Win10. You've got the right idea, just make a new partition on the same drive and use that location as the installation target. You can grab the Win10 installation media (Media Creation Tool) at Microsoft's website. If you've got a USB stick with at least 8GB on it, then it'll work a treat. Or you can download the ISO and burn it to a CD.

As far as all of your apps go, yeah you'll need to install them under your Win10 installation. Sample libraries can probably be shared between the OS versions but the app data itself will need to be installed in both places.

I know that Window 10 Home edition can be used indefinitely without activating it with a product key, but I really don't know if the same applies to Win10 Pro. I've been using Pro for about 5 years now, and I bought/activated my version back then so I'm not sure if you can just install it and live with the "activate now" watermark, or if the Pro version forces you to activate eventually.
 
Thanks for all that, very interesting.

I know that Window 10 Home edition can be used indefinitely without activating it with a product key...

Then why would anyone ever activate it, other than as a matter of conscience? Could you put W10 on a partition and run a DAW you are testing?
 
I'll add that if I was doing this not only would I have a backup (or two) of my important data but I'd also take a clone (google CCC) of the system disk before doing anything.

Yes, if you had a dual boot system you could install your chosen DAW on either partition. You would also still be able to access files from the other partition and other disks so no real need to move audio/data around.

You don't seem tied to any particular manufacturer or features - Have you ruled out Reaper? Download-install-done.
 
Thanks for all that, very interesting.
Then why would anyone ever activate it, other than as a matter of conscience? Could you put W10 on a partition and run a DAW you are testing?

As far as I understand it, it's mainly incentive to drive up adoption rates of Win10. Apparently it's working...there are somewhere in the order of a billion installs of Win10 in the world!

The penalties for not activating it are pretty light. It's mostly customization kinds of things that are disabled. Desktop wallpaper, taskbar options, notification area options. There may be more but that was all I ran into when I was using an unactivated version on a computer I was building at the time.
 
I'll add that if I was doing this not only would I have a backup (or two) of my important data but I'd also take a clone (google CCC) of the system disk before doing anything.

Yes, if you had a dual boot system you could install your chosen DAW on either partition. You would also still be able to access files from the other partition and other disks so no real need to move audio/data around.

You don't seem tied to any particular manufacturer or features - Have you ruled out Reaper? Download-install-done.

Thanks very much for that technical stuff. I've copied it to my pre-install notes.

When I first started looking for a DAW, a few years ago, the oddest thing I ran into was the army of rabid Reaper enthusiasts trolling the various DAW & recording forums. It seemed an angry cult. Their most common remark was something like: "Have you stopped using that POS Cubase (or POS PT, or Sonar, or whatever) and switched to Reaper yet?" I was astounded. It wasn't just one of two people, there was a Reaper Jihad going on, a real hate for non-Reaperism, it seemed. It was as if the Hells Angels or the Mafia had launched a DAW and their soldiers were fighting for market share.

I was extremely put off, permanently. I wouldn't use Reaper if someone paid me $2000 cash to do so. Really.

Sorry, Steenamaroo, I wasn't aiming at you. I've been years without posting my views on Reaper, and now I have. :)
 
As far as I understand it, it's mainly incentive to drive up adoption rates of Win10. Apparently it's working...there are somewhere in the order of a billion installs of Win10 in the world!

The penalties for not activating it are pretty light. It's mostly customization kinds of things that are disabled. Desktop wallpaper, taskbar options, notification area options. There may be more but that was all I ran into when I was using an unactivated version on a computer I was building at the time.

Thanks fopr that, it's copied to notes. :) I wouldn't be doing this at all, but in my annual DAW re-think, I found that (a) Pro Tools is W10 only, period. (b) Well then. I will simply update my S1 to the recent Version 5. AAAAAAHHHHHH!!! Version 5 is W10 only!!! If I am going to do W10, I will give Pro Tools a run, something I've been meaning to do for a couple of centuries. Reason, an outlier for me, is W10 too. However, I could end up back at Win7, maybe with Ableton slaved to my S1 2.5 if that works.
 
Thanks very much for that technical stuff. I've copied it to my pre-install notes.

When I first started looking for a DAW, a few years ago, the oddest thing I ran into was the army of rabid Reaper enthusiasts trolling the various DAW & recording forums. It seemed an angry cult. Their most common remark was something like: "Have you stopped using that POS Cubase (or POS PT, or Sonar, or whatever) and switched to Reaper yet?" I was astounded. It wasn't just one of two people, there was a Reaper Jihad going on, a real hate for non-Reaperism, it seemed. It was as if the Hells Angels or the Mafia had launched a DAW and their soldiers were fighting for market share.

I was extremely put off, permanently. I wouldn't use Reaper if someone paid me $2000 cash to do so. Really.

Sorry, Steenamaroo, I wasn't aiming at you. I've been years without posting my views on Reaper, and now I have. :)

Pleasure, and no problem.
Yeah, I can see how that sort of thing would be off-putting.
It'd be a shame to let idiots on a forum ruin the obvious solution, though.

I don't use it regularly because I still have a current enough ProTools license but it's inevitable - Some day I'll jump over.
I've had it on Win, MacOS, Linux...even running on a Pi4 - All flawlessly without having to research anything.

If you can get over that and give it a go I think it would be worth it.
If not, I hope you find something else you like. :)
 
If not, I hope you find something else you like. :)

Thank you. I don't mind Studio One, any shortcomings are mine, not the DAW's. However, as everyone says. the workflow either gets you or it doesn't, so I'm just seeing if there is one I like better, maybe in conjunction with S1, such as Ableton. The list is pretty short: Ableton, PT, Cakewalk, and believe it or not, Audacity.
 
Even I have to admit that I'm put off by the notion of judging a DAW by online comments made by its users. I think that's a poor reason to dismiss a DAW, especially when it is the hands-down winner in the bang-for-buck category of today's market. Use what you want, especially if the workflow is intuitive for you, but I have to say that Pro Tools is a poor investment for a home studio in 2020 unless you're regularly interfacing with pro studios (even then, just render stems and it doesn't matter what DAW you're using).

In a world where Cakewalk is free and Reaper is $60, Avid hasn't managed the value of their software very well. And as much as I love Studio One, at $400 for the Pro version, even that is a tough sell in today's market for home studios.
 
Even I have to admit that I'm put off by the notion of judging a DAW by online comments made by its users.

I'm not dismissing the utility of the DAW, but inevitably one would have to spend a fair bit of time on their forum, especially in the early stages, and I would have no interest in doing so at any price. There is no shortage of good DAWs and while not wealthy, I can spring for a good DAW if I prefer one to the Studio One Pro which I own. Audacity and Cakewalk are both on my test-drive list, but not because they are free but because they sound interesting. I had a quick look at Audacity and it seems a well designed DAW without the graphical cake-icing which make commercial DAWs look slick. It looks............... DOS, almost.
 
Honestly, I barely had to use the Reaper forums at all when learning, and that was only for really deep stuff like the built-in FX programming language. (And if you're at the point where the difference between a float and a pointer is relevant to you, well then I think I have to call you a liar for your "I'm not a hacker" comment earlier! :D )

To your original question, a portable install (USB) of win 10 sounds like it might get you the simplest configuration.

Alternatively, you can probably still get a free upgrade from w7 to w10. Back up all your files first, but if it works correctly, you won't have to reinstall anything, and all your data, projects, etc should be where they were before.
 
Or do what I just did. Clone W7 drive. Then install W10 on the clone. If you want to boot from either, just boot from BIOS the OS drive you want to use.

I suppose that is not an option for a laptop tho...
 
Or do what I just did. Clone W7 drive. Then install W10 on the clone. If you want to boot from either, just boot from BIOS the OS drive you want to use.

I suppose that is not an option for a laptop tho...

Mine is a desktop.

So, I would need cloning software; which one do you use?

Thanks
 
Mine is a desktop.

So, I would need cloning software; which one do you use?

Thanks

Acronis is what was used. It was a computer tech friend of mine that had the software. Not sure if that can be a one use thing or if the subscription is needed.

I sent him a message to get details. It works seamlessly for me.
 
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