Safe to Install New Dual Boot?
Safe to Install New Dual Boot?
The update wasn’t supposed to reach dual-boot PCs.
My GF recently said I can install Linux on her laptop. Then I saw Windows broke dual boot systems.
Is it safe to do a dual boot if she already has the update that broke dual booting?
Should I just figure out how to install Windows in a VM for her?
Appreciate any insight y'all can offer
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Dumb title. Yes, it's safe. Windows has nerfed boot records for any other OS since the beginning of dual-booting. Just replace the boot record.
Also, if you want to be hardcore about it, and since everything is UEFI now, just use your BIOS boot manager to control booting. Shouldn't be a problem.
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I looked at the breakdown, and I believe it's only changing the preference for same device.
It doesn't change the preferences but it does replace bootx64.efi which is the default bootloader executable for a drive, when the UEFI doesn't have more specific entries. In some configurations both Windows and GRUB want to be that.
If you add a boot entry for GRUB and don't point it to the default executable, then it won't be affected. Until you reset the BIOS or try to use the drive in another system that is, in which case the firmware will then only know about the default executable. But it's easy to add the boot entries back.
Yes, on the same device. If your BIOS specifically orders a different device as boot, this wouldn't matter, as in my original post.