This is why I no longer dual boot and removed windows all together.
I’m in school. I 100% need windows for proctored tests. Institutions that offer online schooling are slowly building infrastructure around Microsoft 365 and underlying tech that depends on windows.
I get it. I main Linux too but you 100% need windows in remote learning. So it’s dual boot.
why not just use a VM?
idk what this meme means because i’ve never considered dual booting
the cat in the image is windows update taking over the linux boot partition: the box, instead of leaving it alone for the much more comfortable windows boot partition: the cat tree.
If I didn’t have to use it a handful of times a year for work I’d have wiped my windows drive and extended my Linux storage. Alas.
I feel for the folks who can’t afford a second drive to dual boot.
The correct fix
This is the only way to go.
I run Win10 IOT in a virtualbox to run one app once a month for a few minutes, that I haven’t found a replacement for.
I built a computer in 2012 with the idea of having 3 OSes to boot from: Windows 7, Mac OS 10.7 (hackintosh), and CentOS.
I partition the drive into three main parts, and install each OS on one each. Except that I had to do it again, because Windows 7 lost its absolute shit that it wasn’t on the first partition. Just threw an absolute shit-fit that it didn’t come first.
So I re-do the installations, let Windows be first in the partition order, Mac OS second, CentOS third. The next problem was that I couldn’t download any drivers on Windows, because it couldn’t recognize the absolutely bog-standard network controller on my motherboard. So I boot into Mac OS X, which (with a couple of quick kext edits) already recognized all of the hardware on the mobo despite none of it being Apple or Apple related, download the drivers for windows, throw them on a FAT partition I set up to exchange data between the OSes, and finally get Windows running in about 4x the time it took to get Mac OS running on the exact same built-for-windows hardware I’d cobbled together.
And of course I fire up CentOS, and it was pretty much, “I got this” right off the bat.
I’ve been using Windows and Mac OS since the late 80s, and linux since about 1999, and I still have never encountered a more fussy OS than Windows.
Considering Bill Gates made it, you can expect it to be grabby and invasive.
Gnu linux and gonorrhoea windows
this is why we don’t dual-boot with Windows anymore. Linux only. No computing device in my household runs on any version of Windows
This is why I no longer dual boot and removed windows all together.
Windows 11 is just unusable junk. Makes Vista and ME look like masterpieces
It’s unusable MALICIOUS junk
Just threw up in my mouth a little bit…
In my experience, Windows only fucks-up your Linux bootloader if they both share the same EFI System Partition. Keeping them separate fixes the issue. Though, this means that you’ll have to install Windows first, since it will automatically pick your Linux ESP otherwise.
Yup and adding a password to the BIOS was recommended to me by some sysadmin online. Don’t know how that specifically helps but haven’t had problems since.
Not sure how I managed this but I installed windows long after Linux on my gaming PC (to use a VR headset that was given to me), and somehow it created its own EFI partition without nuking the real one.
It’s why I put windows on its own drive. It can enshittify itself in its own space.
please don’t equate cats with windows
is there a way to avoid this? and what workflow should be in place ahead of it happening if not?
You need two separate SSDs. One for Linux, one for Windows.
- Install Linux on SSD-A. Make sure it has an EFI system partition with a bootloader in it (GRUB, systemd-boot, REFInd), don’t use an efistub. If the installer is done, disconnect the SSD to be safe.
- Install Windows on SSD-B with the desired updates. It will create its own EFI partition.
- Optionally, you can create a separate NTFS volume for your
C:\Usersso you don’t have to mount the entire system on Linux if you need to access your files.
- Optionally, you can create a separate NTFS volume for your
- Boot into Windows. Use a tool to completely disable the updates. I use WinUtil by Chris Titus.
- Reconnect SSD-A.
- Boot and enter the firmware configuration. In the boot device list, make sure SSD-A has a much higher priority than SSD-B! You can even remove SSD-B from the bootable devices.
- Boot into Linux. In the bootloader configuration, create an entry that targets the Windows C: volume on SSD-B.
- Alternatively, you can just use the firmware’s boot menu to boot from SSD-B.
Done. If you need to update Windows, physically disconnect SSD-A and boot from SSD-B.
Any viable option if you can’t install 2 drives? My laptop only allows one. It currently has Win10 on it and I’m hoping to replace it with Linux with an option to boot into Windows when needed, especially for my wife who isn’t as technical or experienced with Linux. Not sure if there’s anyway to do it without Windows nuking my setup.
Simply dual-booting is viable. My Win10 + Arch worked well for over a year. If you’re worried about Windows Update nuking the EFI partition, you can clone a backup of just that partition (
ddor a dedicated tool like Clonezilla) that you can then restore from a live environment if needed. Another option, if the disk becomes unbootable, is to boot into a live environment from a USB stick and simply reinstall GRUB into the EFI partition.(edit) It’s also a good idea to reduce the frequency of forced updates. You can do that using WinUtil.
Thank you. I think my biggest concern is that I can’t fix it when it breaks, simply due to lack of experience. I’ve fixed busted Windows partitions and boot issues, but never Linux because I’ve just never had an issue with the installs I have and don’t have nearly the same number of years under my belt with it.
As you said I think first order of business is a functional bootable USB which I can use to both backup and restore the partition, and I need to do a practice run restore to prove it works and that I know what I’m doing before I need it.
Separate hard drives one for windows and one for Linux+GRUB then grub just needs to be told where the windows boot loader is and BIOS should load GRUB default.
OP post happens when you attempt to just use partitions. It can work per other comment, just more fragile.
I’ve had one issue in the past year and a half, dual booting from the same NVMe.
After fixing the boot partition issues from a liveUSB, the actual solution was disabling fast-boot.
It’s been solid for a year now.But I always shutdown my laptop when I’m not using it. And any windows updates that require restarts, I make sure it fully reboots into windows again.
Oh no! Not an extra hundred milliseconds to post!
And it’s still faster for my linux install to boot.
LUKS password for disk encryption, then user login to a usable desktop with network connectivity.
Windows takes ages to get to a login screen (bitlocker is disabled, so no decryption excuse), logging in is a breeze with fingerprint reader (certainly faster than typing in a password), then it sits there for ages looking like it’s ready to be used, but the network stack isn’t ready and it is just unusable until that comes up.I’m so happy when I get a day of just working in Linux.
It just… Works.
Dual booting may be a bad idea. You should run MAS-activated Windows in a VM.
It’s really funny when you have grub configured with linux as the default. Then when you select windows it’s 50% chance it’ll update something and reboot, booting you back to linux lmao. I guess they don’t really want me to use it.
I mean honestly you should be updating your Linux partition as well probably much more often than you already are. It’s not the windows has more updates their updates are just automated whereas you have to actually trigger mostly updates on Linux.
You can update linux without having to reboot for the most part, windows reboots literally twice for every tiny patch.
That’s not true. But you believe what you want.
I mean honestly you should be updating your Linux partition as well probably much more often than you already are. It’s not the windows has more updates their updates are just automated whereas you have to actually trigger mostly updates on Linux.
“If I fits, I sits”
This was always really funny to me. Gonna do an update behind my back? Great. Go ahead lol
