This is the latest in a series of tutorials that has been published on this site on how to dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux distributions. Previous articles published on this subject are how to dual-boot Fedora 14 and Windows 7 and how to dual-boot Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7. This article presents a step by step guide on how to dual-boot Linux Mint 10 and Windows 7. This tutorial assumes an installation of Mint 10 on a computer with a single disk, with an existing installation of Windows 7. A previous article was on how to dual-boot Linux Mint 10 and Ubuntu 10.10 on a computer with two hard disk drives.

After booting up the computer from the Linux Mint 10 CD or DVD into the Live environment, begin the installation process by clicking on the Install Linux Mint icon on the desktop. The image below shows the third step of that installation process. The first option shows that the installer has detected another operating system on the hard drive. Click on the Forward button to go to the next step.
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The test installation used for this tutorial was in a virtual environment with about 75 GB of disk space. Windows 7 was installed on this hard drive. The installer automatically shrinks the space occupied by Windows 7 to make room for Mint. The size it allocates to Mint depends on the size of the hard drive. You can resize it by positioning the cursor between both sections as shown below and dragging to the left or right.
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This shows the resized partitions. How much space you take from Windows will depend on how much you want it to have. Click Install Now when you are done resizing the partitions. Note: The installer will install GRUB, the boot loader, in the Master boot Record (MBR) of the hard disk. That means that GRUB will be responsible for dual-booting both operating systems.
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After installation and at every reboot or boot up of the computer, you will be presented with the GRUB menu. Now, you can boot into Mint 10 or Windows 7. Notice that Mint 10 uses GRUB 2.
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When you boot into Windows, or attempt to boot into Windows, it will complain about the disk being corrupted and recommend that you check it. Comply. After checking, the system will reboot and drop you back to the GRUB boot menu. Now select the Windows 7 option and you should be able to boot into Windows 7 successfully.
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