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On Mon, 12 Jul 2021 20:26:37 +0100 comrade meowski <mr.meowski@xxxxxxxx> wrote: Remember this thread? >> I have to set systems up the other way, although dual boot machines >> are pretty uncommon these days at least among my clients so it's not >> something I need to do very often. When I do, I make sure to go >> through the admittedly annoying checklist to make sure that all of >> the important stuff can stay set = ON (you want UEFI and Secure Boot >> enabled for both operating systems) to keep Win10 Pro happy and then >> Linux is predictably much easier to deal with and most sane distros >> won't have any problem installing and running alongside it. I'm about to take delivery of a refurbished Dell T7810 with a W10 Pro installed. I'm wondering whether to keep the W10, if only to update the firmware. On all of my previous Dells, I've deleted the W7/8/10 and gone down the Legacy BIOS or more recently the UEFI route for a pure linux system. > > Do you want any further advice/instructions on this So, yes please to some further advice and instructions. Specifically, these points leapt out at me: > ... > > 2: The only thing you want from that Win10 image is the Pro license > key. Because of the way things work in the modern world you almost > certainly won't have the actual key accessible to you in any normal > form (like on shrink wrapped packaging with the bundled install media > for example - those days are gone). So to get the key you'll need to > extract it from the Windows install itself, by booting it or > accessing it from Linux... > > 3: ...but it's questionable if that is even worth it. A Win10 Pro > license key is available for £10-£15 easily and when I'm faced with > this issue it would cost the user considerably more to pay for the > hour or two of my time required to do this vs just buying a new key > and abandoning the old one. You may feel differently as I'm offering > you free advice rather than billing you per hour to fix your stuff! > For a home user it's often worth the hassle to DIY, even for just a > few quids. ... > re-enabled the UEFI in firmware (which you > really, really should NOT have disabled) ... > - I nuke all OEM preinstalled images and reinstall a clean default > image from scratch. ALWAYS, no exceptions ever. Just grab the key > first if you need it or don't want to have to extract it from the > firmware. ... > 4: Wipe the entire system. Setup firmware correctly with all the > modern stuff ON and leave it that way, this isn't 1995 any more and > BIOS, MBR, and non-secure boot are dead. UEFI, GPT, Secure Boot all > belong ON. ... I'd greatly appreciate a few pointers. Is anyone running a dual-boot Dell? Is it possible to keep the Dell W10 on a recovery partition; and can the recovery image be used as a basis for a qemu instance? I was thinking of an scratch partition (50G?) just for a W10.qcow functionality or W10 recovery. When the native W10 recovery partition is activated, does it allow a targeted installation to a specified partition, or does it just swallow the entire drive? Can anyone tell that I haven't a clue what I'm talking about? Thanks fraser -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq