I have an interesting situation where there is no USB or CD/DVD or option to add one. There is only 1 available SATA port on the motherboard in use for the 1 single 1 TB drive. The goal is to partition the hard drive (already done) and start the installation withing the current version of Windows, without upgrading the current version and force it to install on the other partition so that it will dual-boot. The problem though is it seems to always want to upgrade (Windows 7). Is there a way to start the install within the current version of Windows and tell it to install on the other partition (keeping in mind that this must be done via the hard drive only as there is no USB or CD option)?
Isn't this an answer to your problem? I once had a system that wouldn't boot from the installmedia i had (usb and dvd), i took the hdd and placed it in my testsysytem, installed 10 and put the hdd back in the original system, boot it and i had a running system again. Or apply the image on the other partition and use a tool like easybcd to get it booting?
It is actually a friend's computer and I have been trying to figure out how to do what he wanted. Generally speaking, without having to take his hard drive out and place it on another computer. I had hoped there was away to manipulate the install that would give me the option to install it onto the other partition (since I can only start the setup within Windows to begin with).
Does it have ethernet or WIFI? You could try PXE booting. Granted, it might be the longest way of doing things
Try running Setup.exe located in the Sources folder. Tip leave new destination partition unformatted (RAW) before beginning install. This will allow both of your Windows installs to "appear" to be installed on C:\. The swapping of drives letters is handled automatically by dual boot. Otherwise your new Windows will be installed to something like D:\ or E:\ or whatever letter you may have given your new partition.
I don't know if this will even work but there is a virtual cd drive from MS to mount the iso as if there were a physical drive. I used this years ago to mount images. You wouldn't be able to mount it at boot time though. I can't post a link but it's called "Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel" Not sure it will help but food for thought.
As said, use Dism : Code: dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:[path to windows 10 install.wim] /Index:1 /ApplyDir:D:\ where D is your second partition. Make the system bootable with : Code: bcdboot /s d: d:\Windows assuming it is a BIOS/MBR based system. And use easyBcd to create the boot menu
Thank you, this worked! I cannot believe it was as simple as this. lol We knew we had to extract the ISO into its own folder and had done so long ago using 7zip. But as previously stated, running the normal setup.exe file from within Windows 7 caused the setup to attempt an upgrade which was not the desired goal. Running the setup.exe within the source folder, however, gave me the option to either upgrade or fresh install and allowing me to select where to install. To shortly recap: /setup.exe - upgrade only /sources/setup.exe - allowed for choices
I bet your new shiny win7 is installed in D: or E: instead of C: You wasted 4x the time to have a poor result, just because the laziness on learning something new (as usual)