I’ve heard dual booting Linux and Windows isn’t a good idea because Windows Update will nuke the Linux boot loader, so I’ve avoided doing that.
For a very long, technical, and complicated reason, I still need Windows because one piece of software that I absolutely MUST have is only compatible with Windows. No, there is no alternative software available for my use case; none, zero, not any, at all. I’ve already tried running it within many different VMs, using many different hypervisors, and I’ve already tried Wine; they aren’t an option, the software isn’t stable in those cases. I don’t want to get in the weeds about it, so please just accept that I NEED some version of Windows installed.
Since Windows 10 doesn’t receive updates anymore, can I dual boot Linux and Windows 10 without worrying about whether Windows Update will break anything? I intend to keep Windows on one drive and Linux on another. Windows would only be used when I need to run this one specific program, which is maybe five or ten hours per week. The rest of the time, I’d be using Linux.
You don’t need separate disks like people are saying. You can have two separate EFI System Partitions (ESP) on the same disk, the one Windows makes and one that you make for just Linux so Windows isn’t ever messing with it.
I’ve run Windows 10 & Linux on the same disk through many Windows updates without issue.
And actually, if you’re never going to update Windows, then there would be no reason you can’t have them use the same ESP.
What loopy’s saying. I find it easier to be like “Disk A: Linux, Disk B: Windows” and use separate EFI partitions, so I generally do that on computers where I can stuff two separate disks, but I have machines with only one hard drive, and then I just go “First half of disk: Windows, second half: Linux.” I agree that install Windows then Linux is the way to go. True story: quadruple booted an old MacBook Pro: supported Mac OS, OCLP Mac OS, Windows 11, Ubuntu. Did it for a friend, spent forever getting it all to work, then he set it down in a coffee shop and walked away. Never saw it again.