Microsoft may tout Windows 7′s growth curve, but the truth is that Windows XP rules the desktop, and will do so for many years.

The most recent report shows that Windows XP has more than twice the market share of Windows 7 and Windows Vista combined. Add Mac OS X to Windows Vista and 7 numbers, and XP still far outpaces them. Recent research shows that Windows XP had 61.87% of market share in July, compared to 14.46% for Windows 7, 14.34% for Windows Vista, 2.48% for Mac OS X 10.6, and 1.82% for Mac OS X 10.5. You can see the chart, below.

If you have PC which support Hardware Virtualization, you can run Windows XP while you are using Windows 7 easily and this procedure is much better. I have explained how to install Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 here: XP Mode in Windows 7

But, if your PC (Actually, CPU and Motherboard) does not support Hardware Virtualization, you can dual-boot Windows 7 and Windows XP so you can use newer Operating System and take all of its great features while you still can be on your old Operating System which you know very good and some of the applications still works better on XP than on 7.

The first thing we need to do is to create new partition in Windows 7 for future Windows XP installation. You don’t need any third-party software to do that. Just click on Start and type either partition or diskmanagement or diskmgmt.msc into the search box and on search results click on Create and format hard disk partitions.