I really hate that Windows does this. Which is why when I decide to switch a machine to Linux it’s the only OS allowed to boot to bare metal. Windows can go in a VM and suck it.
Not sure why, but your comment made me think about the first machine I switched to Linux. It was a laptop who’s fan eventually had a bad bearing and needed to be replaced. Luckily it was still under warranty, so I sent the laptop in to get the fan replaced, and received my laptop back with Windows installed on it… I was so livid.
Never send them the drive.
They are probably required to boot to the desktop for qa
Yup, exactly what they said. But I didn’t know any better at the time. These days I would just fix that myself rather than send it to them
Yeah, it’s a once in a lifetime thing lol, but it’s better to put that out on the off chance someone reading it may have to send one in.
I hate to say it, but unless they’re corporate machines or you put it together yourself, computers are basically disposable these days.
Yeah, that is really sad. I’m actually due for a new laptop soon, I’m just very thankful that Framework exists now.
Cheeky way to get windows for free?
I mean if you already bought the computer, they’re really just giving it back to you and I’m pretty sure you can just download it.
I was mostly being snarky. Windows only comes preinstalled if you buy a full setup. All my stuff is either Mac laptops or custom towers so I always have to acquire a new windows license when I setup a new build for myself or my partner
No, yeah I was just being snarky too. I guess builders(probably gamere) are the only real retail windows buyers lol
Just install it without a key.
Had something similar happen to me. Something unrelated to the OS or hard drive and they reformatted my drive and I lost everything. I was ballistic when I found that one out.
That pissed me off
That’s the way to go
I want to do this so bad but gaming always stops me. Some anticheat refuses to let you play in a vm
Defective by design. I really hate windows but need it for Ableton.
Can I boat off Linux USB and run an MBR recovery program or something?
Depending on your configuration, you can pass a gpu to your Windows VM so you don’t even lose any performance if you use Windows for gaming. All you need is an iGPU and a few extra cores/ram to handle the host overhead.
Get a separate disk for windows and you can set up your windows VM to also optionally dual boot into it
What’s actually happening here is Windows is setting its bootloader first in your EFI when it gets updated. Linux isn’t gone, you just have to press the “boot another drive” button and boot to it, or go into your EFI setup and switch the bootloader back to the Linux one.
Linuxes do the same thing when updating their bootloader.
Note for the Ackshually crowd: If you’re still booting MBR (which comes with the partition eating risk on dual boots) you have a system that is older than Windows 8 - 11+ years old, so eating the MBR is something you’ll have to deal with unconventionally, as all modern systems, OS, and hardware expect you to be using EFI.
Grub does not do the same thing unless something has gone wrong. It detects windows and offers you the choice on boot as to which OS to start.
Grub is still the first bootloader in that case. You would not notice if it was putting itself first after an update unless you have Windows booting first.
You might notice if you are booting between multiple linuxes, all with their own version of grub.
Again, unless something has gone wrong, the grub config should auto-detect the other Linux distros installed and add them to the boot menu. It should look like this:
EDIT: Also, what can happen is that the grub timeout (the time that menu is on screen) is set to 0 seconds. You can get the grub menu to stay up by holding left shift during boot if that’s the case.
Having dual booted Fedora and Ubuntu before, I will point out that they will both install Grub in the EFI under separate folders and do battle for first boot dominance every time there’s a kernel update.
What OP was saying is that updating Linux may also change your bootloader to the one that Linux expects you to be using. It’s better since it will detect windows and give you the option of booting into it, but it’ll still replace what’s being used (according to OP).
Not the case. What’s happening here is Windows is removing the ext4 partition completely, expanding the ntfs partition and writing to all of it.
Windows update did that to my <1 year old laptop. I figured it had just wiped out grub, but when it was booted from a live-usb there was no ext4 partition there at all. This has been reported many times.
Microsoft should be sued for this shit. Legal protection from destroying people’s data that is not part of Windows or in a Windows partition, whether deliberately or by negligence, is not something that can be legitimately covered by a license agreement.
Second that. I can’t think of a way that that is not deliberate. The “cover” would be that it is ensuring that the full device is used so that the end user doesn’t have to worry about it. In reality, there’s no legitimate reason for an update to touch the partition table. Way to easy to brick the system.
It sometimes destroys the Linux boot sector too. But it’s simple enough to chroot with a live usb and repair it. I don’t even have both OS as an option. Mine boots straight into Linux unless I interrupt it and use the boot another drive option. Linux and Windows have their own separate boot sectors, but Windows will fubar the Linux sector randomly.
In my experience (W11 + Fedora on UEFI Thinkpad), I’ve seen it actually get rid of the Fedora entry from the UEFI boot list. Reinstalling GRUB from chroot didn’t fix it, so I used EasyUEFI and manually added the Fedora EFI file to the boot list and that worked.
So it wasn’t simply changing the boot order, it actually nuked Fedora from the UEFI boot list.
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But this is Lemmy Linux memes where they tell lies or use half truths about other OS’s and laugh about it rather than making actual clever memes! Get outta here with that sense!!
And where they ridicule Windows users because they’re “not good enough at computers to use Linux” yet they keep pointing out all the ways they themselves aren’t able to use Windows 🤔
That’s actually one of my biggest complaints about Linux users tbh. Sure, Linux is great. But half of the “windows doesn’t let you do [X]” complaints are really just “I couldn’t figure out how to do [X] and couldn’t be bothered to google it” in disguise.
Because basic windows functionality is almost always hidden behind layers of gui bullshit and is literally like staring at the sun.
Ubuntu be like
Except that Windows is constantly touted as being “easy to use” relative to Linux.
Because it is?
It is, but you can’t do advanced changed if you can’t be bothered to search for stuff.
Dual booting < having two separate SSD’s
They still need to share an EFI partition
Not really if you have a bootloader like refind it will look for other EFIs and list them. Makes for a really clean set up
The bootloader resides in an eeprom on the motherboard or something?
Kinda, theres actually multiple chained together. All of them handing control over to software more complicated than the last. The end goal is to load and hand control over to a kernal on stored on a writable storage media. The one on the eeprom is the first one (the BIOS).
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
If you don’t want to bother with the bootloader like the other comment mentioned you can also just use the boot menu from the motherboard instead. You gotta mash f11 (or whatever it is on your motherboard) on boot when you want to go into Windows, but if you only need it every once in a while it is good enough.
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It’s not a feature, but it’s by design.
Windows only updates the bootloader, it doesn’t touch Linux partitions. After an update you just have to fix the bootloader again which isn’t too hard if you know how it works.
I’d argue one shouldn’t even be messing with dual booting if they don’t understand much about the bootloader.
My counterpoint would be how does one best learn about anything if not by messing with it
As in tradition - mindset. Getting on Linux requires a certain mindset, and this gets more and more true the weirder and more involved whatever it is that you are planning to do gets.
The best way to learn how it works is to mess with it. I have reinstalled my Surface Go 2 numerous times because I messed something up. After leaving Windows I have used dual boot with Arch and Chrome OS for a while, and now I just use Arch including secureboot enabled.
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I’m sure it varies a lot, but you should be able to enter bios setup and add a boot option. There may be a file browser type popup and you can add the known file as a boot option. Right now it may be looking for the old file location on the current windows boot option you have.
Protip:
Just don’t have a live Windows partition.
This. I entirely understand that some people don’t have that option, but it’s worth reiterating that if you have a choice, you’re best off not to have partitions at all.
I run Mint on an 8-year-old Mac desktop machine with no partitions and it’s lightning-fast for everything I need it to do.
It’s also worth mentioning that I have said desktop machine because my wife is a pro photographer and Apple and Adobe have colluded for decades to create a kind of “planned obsolescence” whereby professional photographers are ostensibly locked out of the current industry standard unless they run a very recent version of Photoshop that by design isn’t compatible with hardware architecture that’s more than about 5-years-old.
Partitioning is good even if you’re just running Linux. Specifically separating your / from your /home/ – In case shit goes wrong you can nuke the OS side and keep all your files and shit. (also, mandatory for UEFI systems cuz you also need a /boot/efi partition)
Just protect bios/uefi with password and windows won’t be able to modify any other EFI entry. It worked when i’ve dual-booted, it should still work.
How can I do that? I’m dual booting but was not aware of this, makes me a little nervous…
No need to worry, it’s in your BIOS under security section. You can check if you set correct one by trying to change boot device: if there’s password prompt, you’re now safe from windows update “repair”.
All right I’ll do that, thanks!
What about stop making bullshit posts? Windows have never did that to me, and there’s no reason why would it touch any partition aside from its own and (if it exists) the Windows boot one.
That said, It MIGHT replace MBR boot record but I don’t know if that’s very likely these days. I remember upgrading from Windows 8 to 10 and Windows left my MBR alone, and I was able to boot to GRUB just fine.
If you install Linux first and then Windows on the same drive, it will fuck up your bootloader.
You can easily make Grub boot Windows, so just overwrite whatever fuckup Windows made, or install Windows first.
It won’t happen with a simple update, though, that’s for sure. Maybe if you’re upgrading Windows to a new major release.
Noooo, not the heckin windorinos, s-stop bullying the multibillion dollar company g-guys ;-;
Inventing FUD is a bad look regardless of if you’re punching up or punching down. It’s not about who the target is. It’s that FUD is inherently dishonest, and being dishonest reflects poorly on your character.
The Linux community should try to be better than that. We shouldn’t stoop to Microsoft’s old level.
Admittedly, I haven’t set up a dual booted Linux machine in about a decade, so I don’t know if it’s gotten dramatically worse.
Someone having money isn’t an excuse to not call out poor behavior against them. Making nonsensical posts that are not even accurate from an IT perspective helps no one. At best, it’s just lies to get fake internet attention, at worst, it exposes a lack of understanding of the technology.
Lol didn’t read
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Not everyone here is a Lemmy user. I just don’t like people making idiotic comments. There’s plenty do criticize about Windows without having to make stuff up due to lack of IT knowledge. If you claim calling out someone’s incorrect IT knowledge as a defending Windows, that’s just you being an idiot and knowing nothing of IT.
It’s amazing, bro that you expose your woefully inadequate knowledge. If you want to troll, don’t pretend to be anything else.
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It doesn’t though. At best, it messes with the boot record (which has been mentioned) which isn’t deleting a partition. Windows can’t delete a partition it doesn’t actually use.
You can continue your inability to understand the actual details of what you’re talking about. I’m not defending Windows. I’m defending telling the truth about PCs. You can continue your fanboyism and inexperience with operating systems and hard drives.
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Are your comprehension skills that of a four year old?
Windows users are lolcows bro, just farm them for lulz.
Did we just collectively travel 15 years back in time?
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Calling someone out on their bullshit can do that to a person.
Never happened to me. Like ever. And I’ve been on Linux (with occasional dual-booting whenever I’m in a position where I need windows–) for like 15 years now?
To be honest a lot of stuff people talk about seems to not happen to me and I think I might be exceedingly lucky or smth.
To be honest a lot of stuff people talk about seems to not happen to me and I think I might be exceedingly lucky or smth.
Considering the people who seem to have issues are the ones who go out of their way to be all “Linux good/Microsoft bad” I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume most of it is total bullshit.
I’ve built half a dozen PC’s running windows 10 from scratch and not a single one of them has gotten messed up during the incredibly straightforward install/update process. It’s so dumb simple compared to virtually anything else I just don’t get how you could even have problems.
Listening to Windows problems on here from Linux users (I use both btw just to avoid the inevitable pedantry) is like watching a toddler throw a fit because he found out you have to peel a banana before you eat it, but their favorite fruit is an orange.
is like watching a toddler throw a fit because he found out you have to peel a banana before you eat it, but their favorite fruit is an orange.
Got to admit, that’s one hell of a response. Can be used in many situations.
See your argument might hold water if “stuff people talk about” were something applicable only to Windows/Linux fights. (Windows can lick my fuzzy horse ass, btw—)
But like. People love to meme on how SystemD makes your computer hang up for a long while when shutting down? Never saw it happen. People meme on PulseAudio breaking? Never happened to me. Shit like that.
Considering the people who seem to have issues are the ones who go out of their way to be all “Linux good/Microsoft bad” I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume most of it is total bullshit.
Considering a simple google search of these terms brings up multiple people whose position on Linux and Microsoft is completely unknown to anyone else but themselves, having the exact problem OP is posting about, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you’ve attached your identity to Microsoft and have to defend them for some reason.
I’ve been using Computers for nearly 30 years, and Windows has come a LONG way in that time. But lets not pretend windows doesn’t shit the bed sometimes. Hell a simple google search will reveal articles like this one and a large number of results of peoples PC’s having issues after windows update. Youtubers have made videos on windows update issues.
I had one of my PC’s straight up boot loop after a routine windows update and had to use a recovery to fix it, only for windows to auto update and re boot loop itself immediately afterwards. Most of the time, windows updates are fine, but sometimes they fuck shit up.
Same. Never happened to me either. But I usually make a sperate UEFI partition for Linux instead of relying on grub.
It can still happen. Your UEFI settings are accessible from the system. That’s part of the standard. So Windows sometimes rewrites these settings to make itself the default again.
That is true for me now, but for years I used dual boot on old BIOS based systems so idk /shrug
That’s actually more safe. Windows can rewrite the UEFI setting to make itself the default again (although that’s of course easy to fix). But it can’t change your BIOS boot order.
It never did so in updates for me, but assuming it did, UEFI stuff is fixable, just mess with the settings for five seconds :P
When I booted into Windows 8.1 on my 2016 desktop computer, it immediately destroyed my boot loader for Ubuntu making it impossible to boot. I can’t confirm if it was BIOS or UEFI though. I had to use a convoluted technique to restore the boot loader for it to load Ubuntu afterwards each time I ran Windows.
What? Windows kills other partitions during update?
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Anticompetitive behaviour from microsoft??? gasp
No, Windows is just setting the computer up for users who don’t typically change anything in the bootloader.
I can confirm. It does this I think if both OS are on the same disk, probably share bootloader. Never happened when I used separate disks.
Is there a grub installer that runs under windows? (no spell checker I refuse to capitalize windows)
If you’re using UEFI there is nothing to reinstall. The installed bootloaders are still there in the UEFI partition, Windows just changed which one is set as the default. There are tools you can use, such as EasyUEFI (if I remember correctly), to revert the default to Grub or refind or systemd-boot, whichever you’re using.
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Windows likes to mess with the EFI partition on updates, scrweing up bootloaders. That you can prevent by separate EFI partition on another disk, This way Windows doesn’t see the other efi files to boot. But when it feesl really obnoxious, it also edits your EFI table and sets itself as the default. That doesn’t actually damage your linux boot files, but you still need to log back with some bootstick and revert the change, to make your bootloader/menu the default again.
That’s the reason people often switch to Windows only as a VM (there are even solution to passthrough a dedicated graphics card just for Windows, if that’s for gaming) after some time. Because Windows is actively working against other OS’s on your computer.
In a way their Secure Boot bullshit is nothing different. Get vendors to include MS keys by default, then pretend that Windows is somehow more secure because you need to deactivate Secure Boot to install soemthing else (who cares that one key on every machine is not exactly secure, even more so as MS keys were already found in the wild in malware so they don’t even know how to not lose them…)
Secure boot is the main reason I gave up dual booting on my desktop. Just couldn’t be fucked to keep turning it on and off every time. (I have an Nvidia GPU, kernel driver signing, updates, etc. tldr, fuck nvidia)
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Tip, just make a seperate EFI partition for Linux. That way, garbage Windows installer won’t be able to fuck up your install. Altough this assumes you’re running a non-shit EFI mobo that looks for things to boot in every partition.
The last time windows tried to update, it froze and when i rebooted my laptop, windows broke
Lol which Windows? Windows 98? I installed win 10 on the laptop of my gf after replacing the hdd with an ssd some days ago and one update also froze. But it did not break the os. After rebooting it just removed the update.
I was using windows 11
Cheryl Blossom? Anyone?
I have the opposite problem. I don’t often boot to windows, but when I do, BitLocker is not happy that I’ve been talking to another operating system.
I assume secure boot is off and your Windows drive/partition is encrypted.
