Hey everyone!

I got my desktop with dual boot (Kubuntu & W11) and wanted to know if I ever go fully Kubuntu, am I able to reinstall Windows again?

I don’t have a disc, but my desktop came with it pre-installed. Is it tied to my Live account?

  • oldGregg@lemm.ee
    3·
    1 year ago

    Keep windows on a second drive and instead of dual booting, open the windows OS in a virtual machine inside linux

    • flashgnash@lemm.ee
      1·
      1 year ago

      I tried that once, technically possible but it wouldn’t let me login on the install I had been using long term previously (seemed fine on a completely fresh install)

      Need windows little enough that I’ve just put my existing license in a fresh VM instead

      • oldGregg@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        Oh weird, thats how I have my system setup, and Ive reinstalled my OS a few times. the VM dualboot part worked on both arch and Debian but I’m not familiar enough with debian toi get GPU pass through working

    • 1984@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      How does one set this up? Just create a blank VM and pass the drive through?

      • oldGregg@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        I set mine up a while back, I can’t remeber if I installed windows 10 on bare metal or in the VM. I remember I tried both, I want to say installing in the VM worked better. But what I do, is first set up KVM/qemu with virtual machine manager. Then IF YOU DONT HAVE WINDOWS ALREADY wipe the drive you want for windows. I usually just wipe and leave it as free space and not create a partition. Then in virtual machine manager, create a new virtual machine. Use local install media as the install option, select your windows ISO, then instead of ‘create disk image for virtual machine’, you check 'select or create custom storage and type in /dev/nvme1n1 or whatever the drive address is. check the customize before install and make sure its using UEFI instead of BIOS.

        IF YOU ALREADY HAVE WINDOWS INSTALLED, open virtual machine manager, add new virtual machine, manual install, select or create custom storage, then type ‘/dev/nvme1n1’ or whatever your address is. Check the custumize configuration before install and make sure its using UEFI instead of BIOS.

        for both you’ll want to install the KVM windows drivers you can find them on github