Dual Booting Windows 8.1 Pro

Ok, so I have a 1TB HDD installed onto my computer as a secondary drive that's currently use for storage and extra space. I've allocated 250GB of formatted space so I can install Windows 8.1 Pro (download from this website)
All I need to know is how do I install it? (from boot mode and custom install correct?) also how do I boot from one OS to the Other and then Back again? Anyway to switch back and forth easily on the fly? Or what are the steps?

Hi there, @Summerbear5!

Sorry, but you didn't mention what OS you are currently using. Windows 7/10? OS X? A Linux distribution?

And what exactly are you trying to use this second Windows for? If you plan to use it extensively and need processing power, it's better to do a dual boot as you say. But if you want it just to use it lightly, and have a PC powerful enough, you may want to consider installing it on a virtual machine.

If you install it as a dual boot, you'll get a prompt when the computer is powering on to choose what OS you want to run. And to change between one and the other you always need to restart your PC. Installing it on a virtual machine will let you run both at the same time, switching in a second, and Windows 8.1 will be running as a process of the host machine, using the resources you allocated for it (RAM and so on). It will certainly run slower than installing it as dual boot.

I'm currently running Windows 10 and want to run Windows 8.1 as a dual boot because I'll be using it to run and play The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection that doesn't run smoothly on Windows 10. 

I ended up downloading Windows 8.1 Pro and burning it to a disc. I was attempting to boot to the disc from Windows 10 that seems difficult and I think I got it figured out but not sure. I got an error message when I was at the part of chosen the partition to install Windows 8.1. "Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style."

I did format the partition before trying to boot from the disk maybe I should have left it unformatted?

Summerbear5 wrote:I'm currently running Windows 10 and want to run Windows 8.1 as a dual boot because I'll be using it to run and play The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection that doesn't run smoothly on Windows 10. 

I ended up downloading Windows 8.1 Pro and burning it to a disc. I was attempting to boot to the disc from Windows 10 that seems difficult and I think I got it figured out but not sure. I got an error message when I was at the part of chosen the partition to install Windows 8.1. "Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style."

I did format the partition before trying to boot from the disk maybe I should have left it unformatted?

Interesting. What problems are you encountering with The Sims 2 UC on Windows 10? Maybe we can help you with those if you want.
After some necessary tweaks, the game is running on my W10 very normally. I also had to do almost the exact same tweaks when I installed it on Windows 8.1. That is very normal with older games. If you'd want to have a previous version of Windows just to run those games, I'd recommend getting Windows 7 instead.

Regarding that error, there's more info on that here:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn336946.aspx

Let us know what you want to do, and how it goes. Good luck!

My original topic for the problem I am having with The Sims 2. https://games4theworld.forumotion.com/t21234-sims-2-slow-catalog-windows-10?nid=3#143709

The only reason I chose Windows 8.1 is because The Sims 2 UC from Origin is compatible. Maybe I will just get Windows 7 though that'd probably be better. Already wasted a disk though burning Windows 8.1 rofl.

EDIT: I just checked the partition was formatted as NTFS. I'm thinking I am getting the error message because of the way I was trying to boot the disk on startup threw the UEFI settings. Is there another way to boot from disk in Windows 10? (ugh why do they have to make things so difficult!?)

Anyway to boot from a USB without having to go threw UEFI Settings?

Summerbear5 wrote:Anyway to boot from a USB without having to go threw UEFI Settings?

In UEFI mode, the USB needs to be formatted as FAT32 for you to be able to boot from it, instead of NTFS. Also, did you make sure to make the USB bootable with the Windows ISO you chose? There's several programs to do that, but here's one that is distributed directly by Microsoft:
https://wudt.codeplex.com/

Well initially I was trying to boot from a disc but when that didn't work I decided to try USB stick. Using Windows Installation Media Creation Tool now to set it up. 

The only problem I'm having is where am I going to find my Windows 8.1 Product key when I go to install this? Currently running Windows 10.

Summerbear5 wrote:Well initially I was trying to boot from a disc but when that didn't work I decided to try USB stick. Using Windows Installation Media Creation Tool now to set it up. 

The only problem I'm having is where am I going to find my Windows 8.1 Product key when I go to install this? Currently running Windows 10.

After it's installed, you can activate it with the tool you got from our download. It shouldn't ask you for a key right away, or you can skip that step to get the OS but without being activated.

Got it all working! Yay!