Windows 7 Ultimate

[augie]

If one has a dual boot, say Vista or XP installed first and then W7 then that 100MB hidden drive won't be created.

[TxTazDad]

ok, went looking at disk mgr. last night & it STILL created that 100mb partion. Did some "googling" & found this:

Well, I've noticed that Windows 7 creates a 200 MB partition before the system OS partition during the install process in virtual machine. In the newer builds, the partition size is 100 MB.
With the most recent build, I chose to remove all partitions and install, and when I did that it said windows 7 may create additional partitions and again it did a 200 mb partitions, which is hidden from "computer".

There's a way to prevent Windows 7 from creating this partition without the need to third-party partition tools or an XP/Vista CD.

1) Start Windows 7 setup.
2) Once it has started, press Shift+F10 to start the command prompt.
3) Start diskpart and create a primary partition of the size you need. Or, if you don't want to partition, format your drive. Make sure you format the primary partition so that there is no unpartitioned space before the partition where you want to install Windows 7.
4) Exit diskpart.
5) Continue with setup and choose the disk.

Since the drives are partitioned already, Windows 7 will not create this system partition.
Also, note that when you are at the point of selecting a partition to install Windows 7 to, and you choose to format the partition using that GUI interface, then Windows 7 will take the liberty create the system partition as mentioned above.

If you do decide not to let Windows 7 create a system partition, be aware of the following: Disadvantages of skipping system partition as noted by cluberti.

(from the MSFN forum)

[SloppyGoat]

That's why it didn't do it for me. I'd already had an active partition created for it.

[augie]

Not sure where this one got his builds from but from beta on it was the 100MB file. I wouldn't mind having it at all when push comes to shove. There's no way in hell that I'd jump through those hoops for unknown gain and certain loss.

[Halo]

Part of the job of that unallocated partition is if you have Ultimate or Business its created for if you wish to run Bitlocker encryption (generally around 100mb), saves having to create a partition from scratch.