First post here, if this place isn’t for tech support, I’ll remove it.
I’ve heard dual booting Linux and Windows isn’t a good idea because Windows Update will nuke the Linux boot loader, so I’ve avoided doing that.
For a very long, technical, and complicated reason, I still need Windows because one piece of software that I absolutely MUST have is only compatible with Windows. No, there is no alternative software available for my use case; none, zero, not any, at all. I’ve already tried running it within many different VMs, using many different hypervisors, and I’ve already tried Wine; they aren’t an option, the software isn’t stable in those cases. I don’t want to get in the weeds about it, so please just accept that I NEED some version of Windows installed.
Since Windows 10 doesn’t receive updates anymore, can I dual boot Linux and Windows 10 without worrying about whether Windows Update will break anything?
I intend to keep Windows on one drive and Linux on another. Windows would only be used when I need to run this one specific program, which is maybe five or ten hours per week. The rest of the time, I’d be using Linux.
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The best solution could be to install Windows in a VM. Dual booting can be very annoying if you need to access the same files from both systems. Especially since Windows does not power down, but hibernates by default, and it is not safe to access file systems loaded into a system that is not properly powered down - this will lead to file system corruption.
That’s not been quite true in a long time.
When it used to happen, there were a couple of issues involved.
It used to be that Linux identified partitions (“slices” of hard drive) by number, and when Windows changed its own layout in a way that caused that number to change, Linux could fail to boot. But these days partitions have a unique identifier that doesn’t change even when the layout of the hard drive does, and Linux uses these identifiers to keep track of its partitions. So this issue is gone.
It used to be that installing a boot loader involved taking over the first sector of the hard drive and OSes would fight over that sector on install and during updates. But these days there is a mechanism where OSes can put their individual loaders side by side in a special partition and the PC BIOS lets you choose which loader to use. At worst Windows can only update the default choice. It’s been known to do that, but it’s easy enough to change back. There are tools that let you do so right from inside Windows.
So yes, dual-booting Linux and Windows is safe and easy these days. Keeping them on separate drives isn’t even necessary anymore.
I’ve dual-booted Windows and Linux since 2000. Rarely has a Windows update nuked my Grub boot menu. When it did, I always had a Live linux USB key on hand to go fix it in 5 minutes.
Since they’re going to be on separate drives there should be no problems. Literally the only time you have to worry about Windows eating your bootloader is when they’re on the same drive.
And even if both are on the same drive, in like 5 years, it happened like once to me on the machine I daily drive
I’ve had GRUB nuked from installing a BIOS update. Kinda sucks that it happens at all, but it’s bound to happen at some point. It’s pretty rare though.
Just keep a live disk on hand somewhere and use it to setup your bootloader again when needed. It’s only a few bash commands, generally.
Windows update managed to overwrite multiple non windows drives on my dual boot a few months ago. I don’t know how likely it is but microslop defiantly encourages backups
This ^ I have a USB SSD for my Steam Deck that boots Windows 11, no issues.
Installing both into different drives should suffice. Though note that, even if it’s EOL Windows 10 still gets small updates for now. By the way have you tried Winboat? It’s not 100% foolproof but I had better chances of running Windows-only software with it.
No. It’s not okay.
This post has been reported and the Penguin Police will be at your location soon to rescue your Linux installation from this abusive home.
Generally, if they are fully on separate drives, things should be fine. When going to install Windows for the dual boot, physically unplug or uninstall the Linux drive. After Windows is installed and can boot, you can then reinstall the Linux drive.
On the Linux side, you may need to trigger a rebuild for GRUB or your preferred bootloader to get the appropriate Windows 10 entry to show in the boot menu. Some distros may need extra configuration to get this to work. Don’t attempt to automount any partitions from the Windows 10 side and don’t generally try to mount them unless necessary. The only exception to this is if using EFI partitions, then that partition will need to be mounted for GRUB to see it.
Also highly recommended to block Windows 10 from connecting to any network if possible, as it is end of life (unless using ESU releases).
EDIT: Somewhat incorrect information in regard to EFI partitions, missing GRUB configuration related to distro
Thank you for the implementation advice, that was my next question.
I have an old drive I installed Win 10 on a few years ago. It was a fresh build, so it would have been the only drive in the machine when I installed it. The software I need is already installed there and in a working state.
I also have a new machine with a new drive. I installed Mint on the new drive while it was the only drive in the new machine.
My plan is to move the Win 10 drive from the old machine to the new one. In the BIOS, I would set the Linux drive as the default boot option. When I need Windows, I would boot into BIOS and select the Windows drive as a one-time boot option.
Am I on the right track?
You can absolutely swap the primary boot entry in the BIOS by hand, but as mentioned, GRUB can be made to show an entry for Windows 10 upon normal boot. You can select that entry rather than swap the primary target in the BIOS, which will be a time saver when switching OS. Some configuration to get GRUB to pick it up will likely need to be done however.
For that to work, one needs to uncomment a line in
/etc/default/grub(GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=falsebecomesGRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false). If the line simply isn’t present in/etc/default/grub, just add it at the bottom.For GPT, EFI installations
On modern (EFI, GPT) systems, there is specifically one partition you will need to persistently mount from the Windows drive through fstab, being the Windows EFI partition. It does not matter particularly where it is mounted, as long as it is out of the way (a mount point like
/windowsis fine). You’ll have to create an empty directory preferably somewhere under/and owned byroot, and then add the Windows EFI partition as a line to/etc/fstab. The command line utilitieslsblkandblkidcan help to determine the disk partition layout and the EFI partition’s UUID. The ‘Disks’ utility installed by default in Mint can also do this, and may be easier.Before touching your
/etc/fstabfile, make a copy of it. The resulting line added to/etc/fstabwill look roughly likeUUID=ABCD-1234 /windows vfat umask=0077,nofail 0 2, replacing the ABCD-1234 with the actual UUID and /windows with the actual desired mount point, if different. Runningmount -awith sudo is highly recommended after touching the fstab file to verify that everything is correct. The command should complete with no errors. If it does, revert your/etc/fstabto the copied version. Rebooting with a broken fstab file can leave your system unbootable.Finally, for systems like Linux Mint, run
update-grubwith sudo to rebuild the bootloader entries. With os-prober enabled in/etc/default/gruband the Windows EFI partition mounted if relevant,update-grubshould show a warning about os-prober being enabled and among other entries, an entry for Windows 10 should be present. As long as the Windows drive continues to be installed in the system, a boot entry should be available next to your Linux Mint and bios entry options in GRUB going forward.Grub can find the windows install on the secondary drive and give you the option to boot from it at startup.
That’s how I have it setup on my dual-boot laptop. Two 1GB hard drives with one dedicated to w11 & the other to Linux mint.
Other than W11 regular stability issues I haven’t had any issues with it.
1GB may not be enough and could prove challenging for a first time user, even with a minimal Linux install… Though I’m not an arch user myself so probably just a skill issue now that I think of it
Autocorrect strikes again.
Yeah, thought I’d make a stupid joke out of it. Figured we all knew what you meant anyway
I’m just leaving it there.
To be fair that was about the harddrive space of my first linux machine. I installed xunbuntu 6.10 on an old windows 98 machine. I then used it as a game server.
It was a wee bit laggy for some reason. Damn thing ran for another 4 years.
So as your on separate drives, you shouldn’t see issues with MS nuking the boot partition.
IF you are installing both from Scratch. Install Windows first. The reason for this is Windows will see the Boot partition on the 2nd disk for Linux and go “mine now”. If you already have windows running (sounds like you do) then you are all set to just install Linux on the 2nd drive.
In the BIOS, Linux is the boot drive as Grub will see Windows and you can select the Distro to boot each time. I don’t trust the windows selector
I also dual boot on the main PC so my wife can do her own thing. I’ve never had any issues with the installations on seperate disks, so you are doing the best possible setup here for this
As others have said, if they’re on different drives then there is no issue.
The best way to set things up is to make the Linux drive the 1st in the boot order, and ensure Windows 10 is detected in the linux bootloader (almost always Grub). This is a chained bootloader set up - the linux bootloader is first, and if you select Windows 10 in it, it then opens the bootloader on the windows drive which then boots Windows. When they’re on separate drives windows won’t touch it, and linux also won’t touch window’s bootloader.
I’d advise turning off Fastboot in Windows (Fastboot means windows doesn’t shut down fully, and instead hibernates - it’s a trick to make the system boot fasther but it can cause issues when you try to boot back in after using another system). I’d also turn off Secure Boot if you haven’t already - it’s good in theory but in practice it’s pretty broken in a dual boot set up due to Microsoft’s behaviour.
I don’t keep good enough track of windows updates to know whether dual boot would be an issue, but there is another option here.
I use some proprietary tools for work that have zero chance of running on Linux. While I have a laptop for work, its… Too slow for most uses other than using it for calls and for doing presentations.
So what I have set up is a few VMs on my proxmox hosts, but you van do this on the same machine if you want with qemu. I have an iso I’ve cleaned up for my use of Win 10, when I need to use an app I have a script that starts the VM, then I RDP into it. Most of them are CPU reliant, though the ones that do need the GPU heavily are in a VM with a pass through for a quadro.
All the benefits of native operation with little to none of the windows headaches. I’m currently testing a few of them that now support 11 on a tiny11 build - less than 20GB in total for the IS and everything I’m running in there.
The “drives” in the VM where everything gets stored are just mapped to the local proxmox host, so even though its writing to my NAS it just shows up as a D drive.
I do recommend having the C drive be an image stored on an ssd though, it’ll be a much better experience than running it off a store on a NAS or something (which works just great for Linux VMs BTW).
A lot of people say separate drives is fine. It might be. How much do you trust Windows to not fuck around with other drives? Drive order is not deterministic. If one day something changes (windows update, bios update, drive firmware update, or one of the drives just happens to respond slowly) and they get read in a different order, can you guarantee that Windows won’t try to install a boot loader to that drive?
Yes, it’s supposed to only do it on the drive you install it to, but I wouldn’t trust it. Maybe get a cheap old laptop to pull out on those days?
And Windows 10 isn’t officially getting general updates, but there are regular updates released for people with extended security update licenses. I wouldn’t be surprised if they release an update to the general public outside of that program if there’s a really bad vulnerability, too.
I’m curious, though, what about the software is unstable under a VM?
yeah separate drives is the way to go. On one of my thinkpads I have linux and windows. each on it’s own drive. Lenovo makes it easy as I don’t have to be concerned about grub or anything as I can select which one to start via a simple bios selection. with the bullshit windows updates I don’t have to worry about it messing up my linux install.
Separate drives should avoid most of the issues, if paranoid you can just disconnect a drive when switching.
Depending on what you are using linux for running from a usb drive for that could also be an option, something like AntiX-26 with persistence on a usb stick covers a lot of ground.
So if you have two actual HD’s you can install linux on one and keep windows on the other without any issue of windows nuking the bootloader as long as you install the linux bootloader on the linux HD. In bios you select the linux partition to boot from and the linux bootloader should give you a choice of operating systems at boot.
Where you run into issues is when you are using a single HD and partitioning windows and linux on the same drive.
