Installing windows on external drive, or other method without formatting HD

I would like to install windows in order to run some CAD software (i dont want to take the performance hit of running in parallels and osx has an infuriating lack of a good cad program) but I also dont want to have to format my HD since I have all these software licenses set up that it would take forever to set back up again. Is there a way to install windows without formatting my HD in order to repartition it? maybe resize the partition or install windows on an external HD?
thanks!

Windows cannot be installed on an external drive. This is a Windows thing. If you want to use Boot Camp then your internal drive must have no other partitions. Boot Camp will then create a special Windows partition of any size you designate.
If your drive is already partitioned then repartitioning the drive or resizing existing partitions will result in some data loss. Essentially in order to restore the drive to a single partition you must first backup whatever data is stored on the partitions that must be removed. Alternatively, if possible move that data to the main volume (top volume in the partition mapping.) Doing this makes it possible to delete the other partitions, then resize the remaining partition to full capacity. This can be done on the fly using Disk Utility. Of course there's always risk of something going amiss, so it would be wise to have everything backed up.

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