I’ve been happily Windows-free for about 5 years, but lately I need some Win-only software including a few games that don’t work at all on Linux. My main questions:

  • How to avoid Windows messing with my Linux install? Having a separate PC is not possible for me right now. I’m considering uninstalling grub and instead selecting the boot device I want from UEFI, idk if this is advisable though.

  • I’m also interested in how to get a Windows install that’s as minimal as possible: I don’t want to log in to a Microsoft account, I don’t want telemetry etc, I only want whatever is strictly required to make my system functional. The one thing I do want is Windows Defender cause ain’t no way I’m dealing with an antivirus.

  • Should I go for Win 11 or stick to 10?

Any tips or experiences are welcome!

Ps: I know this information is probably all out there, but I thought a post in this community about it would be useful for others as well.

UPDATE: I ended up going with a regular old dual boot using Windows 10 iot LTSC - there’s a few games I wanted to run and a driver as well so I chose to install directly on hardware as opposed to a VM. I created the install media using Ventoy, and UNPLUGGED EVERY OTHER DRIVE during installation except the one Windows was supposed to come on. Afterwards I had to boot in with a live Linux USB (the nice thing about Ventoy is that you can write multiple ISOs to your USB so it came in handy) to manually install rEFInd onto the original EFI partition that my Linux install uses, then I just had to set up the correct boot order in UEFI and everything is working. I also had to fuck around on the boot partition and with efibootmgr to remove all traces of grub so things don’t get tangled up which was a bit scary but things are working perfectly now.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    Swappable hard drives

    I have a ThinkPad with easy access to the hard drive. It’s one screw, remove a small panel and slide out the hard drive, slide in a new hard drive and reinstall the panel and screw. It all takes about a minute.

    I have a drive for my Linux setup and another for windows.

    I gave up setting up dual boot setups because I’m not as skilled or capable and I’ve lost entire setups in the past due to updates and changes and it was constantly frustrating for me. So I figured that just swapping hard drives was the easiest for me. No configuration, no changes and neither OS can interfere with one another.

    I use my Linux as my daily driver for everything and windows when I need something from windows. I only ever use windows maybe once a month or once every second month. I spend more time regularly updating windows than in actually using it.

  • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
    10·
    2 months ago

    One thing I’ve been trying lately that’s a bit different: I happen to have an old SSD that had an enclosure with it (kind of like this) which essentially turns it into an external USB drive.

    I then used Rufus to install Windows on that drive, using the “Windows To Go” option and also checking the option to not allow Windows to access the internal drives. That way, my laptop can just happily run Linux by itself, and if I need to use Windows for anything I can just plug the drive in, hit F12 on boot and choose to boot from that drive instead. The added bonus is that Windows also can’t mess with anything on my regular system or monkey about with the boot loader.

    I’ve only had it on there for about a week but it seems to be working perfectly fine so far!

    Oh and also Rufus gives you the option to start with a local account already set up, so you don’t have to do the MS online account bullshit. And then after install I used ShutUp10 to turn off as much telemetry as I could.

    • erwan@lemmy.ml
      1·
      2 months ago

      If I have a new PC with a blank hard drive, what should be the install order?

      Windows, then rEFInd, then Linux?

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
        1·
        2 months ago

        Linux, Win, rEFInd too. Windows is the destructive force here, so rEFInd should always go after it.

    • KubeRoot@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      I also recommend rEFInd for the bootloader if you don’t want to set anything up (and risk messing up). You don’t need to configure your boot entries, it scans for boot options and shows them with a graphical interface, so your Linux and Windows should just show up.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 months ago

    I’ve got two separate drives. Linux Mint on an SSD and Windows 10 on an older, mechanical drive. Leave the Windows drive alone. Make the Linux drive the first drive in your BIOS boot order, with the option to boot to Windows as your second drive.

    If your GRUB menu doesn’t show the Windows drive yet, run “sudo update-grub” to detect it. When your reboot, the bootloader should show both options.

  • terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    50·
    2 months ago

    Two physical drives. Install windows first in one, then Linux on the other. If you don’t do this order windows boot manager will take over and you’ll have to boot Linux from bios.

    • SteelCorrelation@lemmy.one
      3·
      2 months ago

      Yep, dual disks with the Windows installation done first is how I did/do it. GRUB/systemd-boot worked just fine from then on, and I am not on Windows 11, so I didn’t get hit with that fuck-up Microsoft did just a few days ago.

      • Mambert@beehaw.org
        12·
        2 months ago

        I’d recommend having the Linux drive unplugged during the windows installation. Windows, for some reason, will install the boot loader in an entirely different drive than what you selected. There’s no question or prompt to prevent this. The only way to easily prevent this is to just have the one drive plugged in.

        • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          Yeah, I had to disconnect all my SATA HDs to stop the Windows installer from shitting all over them.

          I’d be worried about Windows updates doing the same thing now, after the the recent glitch that broke bootloaders.

          • Mambert@beehaw.org
            2·
            2 months ago

            It’s common for windows updates to delete boot parts or Linux, corrupt grub, etc. That is only when windows and Linux are installed on the same drive together. I have yet to see Windows corruping Linux on a separate drive entirely. Never happened to me despite how much I mess up my grub updates distro hop.

      • hades@lemm.ee
        51·
        2 months ago

        One problem with that is that you will end up with two EFI partitions. This is not supported very well by anything, really, so you will run the risk of Windows messing with the wrong partition anyway.

        • scorp@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          i’ve been running two drives two EFI partitions dual boot for some time now and it never posed a problem specific to it. on the contrary it makes it easier to distro-hop since you can format the Linux EFI Drive and resize it however you want depending on the distro.

    • Foofighter@discuss.tchncs.de
      9·
      2 months ago

      I’m not using dual boot anymore, but when I did, I always selected the partition from BIOS, which was totally fine for me. Are there arguments against it?

      • I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        2 months ago

        Only an issue if you don’t disable fast shutdown on Windows. A hibernated system might get surprised if another OS moves files about while it was asleep.

        • Wolf314159@startrek.website
          21·
          2 months ago

          Windows is never going to like an NTFS that has been touched by another OS even if it windows was completely shutdown during that time. Reading the NTFS partition might be okay. But, last I checked none of the Linux drivers could write without windows noticing and fouling things up. If that has changed it would be welcome news to me despite my warning use of windows.

          If windows (and to a lesser extent that other OS) came bundled with some ability to mount, read, and write filesystems popular with other operating systems this wouldn’t be such a problem. One shouldn’t have to involve the network stack or 3rd party drivers just to share a partition on the same hardware or a portable drive with a modern file system.

  • Balinares@pawb.socialEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    The default actually works pretty well these days.

    Messing with the EFI partition, for instance by attempting to have two of those on separate disks, will probably cause you more pain than Windows will. As far as I understand, only one EFI partition can be configured in BIOS as the boot partition, so you will have to change the configuration in BIOS whenever you want to boot to the other OS.

    Windows does have a history of changing the default EFI bootloader once in a while; however your chosen bootloader is still there, just not marked as the default anymore. A Windows app like EasyUEFI will let you change the default back.

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
    92·
    2 months ago

    The most painless way to dual-boot is to install something that’s not Windows alongside something else that’s not Windows.

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    I put windows 11 live on a £20 USB drive, and it hasn’t messed with my Linux install at all