You can download the Windows ISO from Microsoft. The Windows License information is stored in your BIOS, IIRC
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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You can download the windows iso from windows webpage, but if I remember correctly you have to do it in Windows since it depends on a downloader program. Then you should store the windows cd-key just in case, you shouldn't need it and there are ways to recover it from Linux if this is an OEM machine, but it's always better safe than sorry.
With all that being said, a bit of unpopular opinion now. Why do you want to do that? I kept a windows partition for years because I never knew if I would need it, it was only when I realised I hadn't touched Windows in months that I felt comfortable removing it, and at that time I didn't cared if it could be reinstalled. The reason I'm asking is because if you have to ask about it you probably never installed windows on a machine, so you don't know how to do that, and it's a lot more complex than Linux because Windows needs all of the drivers to be manually installed to work properly, and while Windows 10 is a bit better in finding those drivers automatically it's still a Pain in the ass to ensure it got the correct things and wait the thousands of reboots to apply all updates because updates are cumulative in Windows.
You can download the windows iso from windows webpage, but if I remember correctly you have to do it in Windows since it depends on a downloader program.
It only forces you to use the media creation tool on Windows, everything else it gives you a link to download the ISO.
I kept a windows partition for years because I never knew if I would need it, it was only when I realised I hadn't touched Windows in months that I felt comfortable removing it
I'm exactly the same.
everything else it gives you a link to download the ISO.
Then that's new, you had to jump through some hoops to get the iso before, I remember just giving up and going to my sister's computer to download it back then.
I do not know about W11 (using only Linux since 2000) but usually when installing Windows this is going to wipe out your whole disk, including any other os. That is why to have two (three or four) os you should install windows first, then any other os, the opposite is more like...a problem.
Can confirm, Windows does not give a single fuck about anything else you're trying to do, will assume every drive is just more space for Windows and steamroller your entire system lol. Much easier to just let it do what it wants first, and then repartition everything to the correct shape when you install Linux afterwards.
You can install windows to a selected Unallocated Space and it will create its partitions, but if it detects an EFI partition, even in a different drive, it uses that for windows.
Since presuming the computer came with Windows activated preinstalled, then the license key is likely embedded into the BIOS of the device. Reinstalling Windows will not void that license key because you already paid for it with the "windows tax." I've reinstalled windows on my pre-built "gaming" PC and the license activated automatically.
There are some pains getting a USB bootable installer image with Windows on a full GNU/Linux system, but it is entirely possible. It's also possible to virtualize windows with GPU pass-through or use Wine/Proton which should always be examined before attempting to reinstall Windows (which is always a last resort).
I just want to reiterate that it is a major pain creating a bootable Windows installation USB drive on a Linux or macOS system. It'd be prudent to create it before installing Linux or make sure you have another Windows computer accessible to you to avoid some headaches if needed.
Ventoy, Ventoy, Ventoy .
If you wanna dual boot, I'd recommend installing windows 1st, Linux 2nd. The windows installer has a very high chance to mess up the Linux bootloader, even if you tell it not to touch that particular partition
I’m kind of doing something similar. I built a machine from scratch and installed arch Linux on it. Now I want to see if i can plug in a hard drive from an older computer that already had windows on it. Then dual boot from that. Not sure what I’ll run into but I’m probably going to try it this weekend.
should work just fine just look at the wiki for os-prober to get it in your grub menu
I’m running that and I don’t have any issues. I just have to go to bios instead of using a boot manager.
if your using grub you just need to install os-prober and re build your grub config and then you can boot windows from grub even on multiple drives
What desktop was it? I'm probably not getting anything anytime soon, but I'm curious for future
I got a lot of great advice on another thread recently (which I still need to go through) on how to get the dual boot going, would be nice to have it be like that out of the box.
Also one thing that might be relevant, I think sometimes reinstalling windows may cause issues if you had extra features. This is second hand experience, a friend replaced an SSD and could no longer use certain features (bitlocker?) because they were only on the pro version of Windows. Somehow they were enabled before
is it possible he forgot to select pro in the install menu
Perfect, thanks a bunch for the replies! Seems I'll be trying to go full Kubuntu soon then, now that Steam's Proton is doing so well!