The simplest way to install multiple systems without PE!

The Easiest Way to Install Multiple OS Without a PE!

This article aims to introduce how to install multiple Windows systems on your computer directly from within your existing Windows system, without using a PE environment.

• What You’ll Need

  • A Windows ISO system image
  • A computer

  Double-click the ISO system image to mount the disc image file directly.

If your current system is Windows 7 or earlier, you’ll need to use an extraction tool like 7-Zip to decompress the ISO system image.

Open the sources folder inside, locate setup.exe, and run it.

Do not run the setup.exe located in the root directory of the ISO image — they are different programs.

• If you’re using a laptop, make sure to plug in the power cable beforehand, otherwise the installer won’t run.

  Then, follow the installer prompts step by step to install the system. When selecting the installation location, be sure to choose the drive you want to install to, and never select your current system drive.

• Windows Setup will automatically create BCD menu entries and boot items after installation, so no manual configuration is needed.

  The computer will restart during installation. When the OS selection screen appears, simply choose the first option and press Enter — the other options are your existing operating systems.

• After installation, you can edit the BCD menu to rename the entries for easier identification.

Here’s something to think about: for the newly installed Windows system, your existing Windows system essentially acts as a PE environment — just a rather complete one.

Using the same method, you can install multiple operating systems on a single computer.

Additionally, when installing Windows this way, the selected partition will not be formatted. In theory, you could install Windows on your data drive.

However, I don’t recommend installing on a data drive — after all, things can go wrong, and data is priceless. Please proceed with caution.

After booting into the newly installed system, you may notice the system drive letter is not C:, but rather the drive letter from the original system. This happens because Windows Setup simply carries over the previous default drive letter — it doesn’t affect functionality.

In this way, installing multiple Windows systems becomes as simple as installing an ordinary piece of software.