Here’s a quick tutorial that shows you how to dual boot Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) and Windows 7. The thing about dual booting two OSs is that you can use both on the same computer without spending another dime for a different hardware.

Another important thing to remember when dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu is, Windows must be installed first before installing Ubuntu, and that’s what we’re going to be doing here. So, before going any further, make sure Windows 7 is installed and there’s enough free disk space to install Ubuntu onto. It’s also important to have more than enough RAM storage on the system you wish to use.

Objectives:

  • Dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.10
  • Enjoy!

To get started, we first want to shrink our current Windows partition if Windows is using all. To do that, click Start –> then right-click Computer and select ‘Manage’

 

 

Next, select ‘Disk Management’ then right-click on ( C: ) and select ‘Shrink Volume’

 

 

Finally, create a new partition for your Ubuntu machine. Make sure you provide enough storage space for Ubuntu to use but also enough free storage left for Windows as well.

 

 

 

After that, shutdown your Windows machine and insert Ubuntu CD / DVD and boot from it.

 

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Next, when prompted with the screen below, select ‘Something else’ and click ‘Continue’

 

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Then select the ‘free space’ and click the plus ( + ) to create new partitions for Ubuntu.

 

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When prompted with the screen below, choose the partition size. Make this Primary and mount point root  ( / ) . Also, since this is where Ubuntu will be installed, make it large so that Ubuntu is able to install on it. Use up to 90% of this free space for / .

 

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Next, select the 10% available space and click the plus again to create a swap partition. Ubuntu can’t function properly without a swap partition.

 

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When prompted, choose the remaining free space and use as swap, then click ‘OK.

 

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Finally, choose the first partition ext4 and click ‘Install Now’ to install Ubuntu on it.

 

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Follow the wizard until you’re done.  Reboot and you’ll see your boot prompt with Windows and Ubuntu as an option to boot from.

 

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Enjoy!