How to Dual Boot Windows 10 along with Windows 11

When Windows 11 was made available to the general public, I was pretty excited. I wanted to install Windows 11 on my Windows 10 laptop. But then the reviews started pouring in and the excitement took a backstage. I became skeptical about Windows 11 but didn’t want to give up on it completely.

So I decided to dual boot Windows 10 laptop with Windows 11. This was I was able to install both Windows 10 and Windows 11 on my laptop, use Windows 11 to see for myself whether it was a good fit for me, and then decided to keep it on top of Windows 10 till Microsoft can eradicate most of the issues with Windows 11.

If you are someone like me, and would like to give Windows 11 a spin before installing it permanently, or would simply like to use both the versions of Windows operating system, read this tutorial to know how you too can dual boot your computer with Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Windows 11 System Requirements

Windows 11 is picky for hardware. You need to check if the current computer is eligible to run Windows 11 based on the minimal system requirements demanded by Windows 11 OS.

For that, you can download the PC Health Check App from Microsoft, install it on the computer and run the program to check it for compatibility issues. The following screenshot indicates my PC meets Windows 11 system requirements so Windows 11 can be installed on it.

Preparation for Windows 10 and Windows 11 Dual Boot

There are 2 things to be done in advance before dual booting Windows 10 and Windows 11.

First, you need a blank USB flash drive at least 8GB in size. Remember, this should be blank, otherwise, all the data will be deleted during the process and you will not be able to retrieve them again.

Second, you need the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool. You can download this from the official Microsoft website (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11).

I would recommend you to have these things handy before you start working on dual booting your computer.

Create Windows 11 Bootable USB

Now that you have everything you need, let’s create the Windows 11 bootable USB using which we will be installing Windows 11 on your computer.

Step 1: Insert the USB flash drive in Windows 10 computer, then launch the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool that you had downloaded earlier. This program does not require any installation, so you can launch it simply by double clicking on the downloaded EXE file.

Step 2: Once the program is launched, you’ll see the license agreement where you need to click on the Accept button to continue.

Step 3: Choose the option to Create installation media for another PC, then click on Next.

Step 4: Now you have to choose the Language, Edition, and Architecture for the Windows 11 operating system. Select the respective options and click Next.

Step 5. You’ll be asked to select the media which you would like to use. In your case it would be the USB flash drive, choose that option then click Next.

Step 6: On the next window select the USB flash drive that you are using from the list. On the next window, simply click Next. This will download Windows 11 ISO and finally, click Finish when the bootable USB creation process is completed.

Now you have created a bootable Windows 11 USB. Close the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool, then take out the bootable USB flash drive we created. Now, let’s move to the next step.

Create New Partition for Windows 11

To install Windows 11, we need to keep aside a separate space in your computer. This space will be a separate partition on the hard drive of your computer.

Step 1: Open Disk Management on Windows 10 by pressing the Windows and the R keys on your keyboard, then typing in diskmgmt.msc in the Run dialog box that pops up, and finally click on the OK button.

Step 2: Once the tool opens up, right-click on the partition from which you want to set aside space for Windows 11 installation, then click on Shrink Volume.

This should bring up a window where you need to mention the amount of space you want to set aside for Windows 11. Type in that number and then click Shrink. This will resize the partition and allocate space in a new unallocated partition.

Step 3: Right click on unallocated space, it and click on New Simple Volume. This will open a New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next to continue. Now, enter the size for the new volume allocated to Windows 11 and assign a drive letter to continue.

Step 4: You’ll be asked to format the new partition. Click Format this volume with the following settings. Keep the Allocation Unit as Default, mention the volume label as Windows 11, check the option for performing a quick format.

This should create a new partition for installing Windows 11 on your computer. Once done, you can move to the next step of this process.

Install Windows 11 on Windows 10 PC as Dual Boot

To install Windows 11 on a computer along side Windows 10 as a dual boot, you need to follow the below steps. However, before you begin, please ensure that your computer is plugged in to a power source (in case of a laptop), and don’t unplug it while the process is running.

Step 1: Turn off the computer, then insert the Windows 11 bootable USB in your laptop.

Step 2: Restart the computer and change boot order from BIOS Settings to ensure that it boots from USB flash drive and not the hard drive. To access the Boot Order menu, you need to press and hold down the F12/F11/F10 key on the keyboard as soon as the computer starts, then select the USB flash drive from the list using the up and down arrow keys.

Step 3: Once the computer boots from Windows 11 bootable USB, you’ll see the Windows 11 setup menu. Here, select your language and other respective options, then click on Next.

Step 4: In the next window, click on Install Now button. Now you need to enter a product key for Windows 11. If you do not have it on you, click on I don’t have a product key to skip this step.

Step 5: Next, select the version of Windows 11 that you would like to install.

Step 6: Now you’ll be shown the license agreement for Windows 11. You need to accept the same to continue.

Step 7: You’ll be asked what type of installation you would like for Windows 11 on your computer. Here you need to choose Custom option.

Step 8: Now choose the partition that you had created to install Windows 11 by clicking on it from the list shown on the next window, then click Next.

This should start the process of installing Windows 11 on your computer on a separate partition. This would automatically dual boot your computer with Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Turn on Dual Boot Menu in Windows 11

We need to do one more thing to ensure that you can boot to the operating system of your choice easily.

Step 1: Boot into Windows 11 operating system after completing the installation process.

Step 2:Click on the Windows button, Settings, System, About, and finally click on Advanced System Settings option as shown below. This should bring up the System Properties window.

Step 3: In the System Properties window, click on the Advanced tab, then Settings under Startup and Recovery section.

Step 4: In the Startup and Recovery window that opens up, you need to select the default operating system from the dropdown, then select the option that says Time to display list of operating systems, enter the time in seconds, and then click OK.

Step 5: Now, every time you boot up your laptop, you’ll be able to see a list of operating systems as shown below. You can click on any of them to boot into that operating system.

That’s it, we’re done! Now you can boot into Windows 10 or Windows 11 operating system on this dual boot computer without having to give up on any of them. And even though the process looks a bit complicate, please be assured that it’s not and you would surely be able to follow it even if you are not a technical person.