Finally decided to take the new Lenovo K14 laptop out of the box. It came with Windows 10 Pro downgrade on the licence. I upgraded to Windows 11 Pro and i see bitlocker is enabled on the drive. The hardware is Ryzen 5 Pro 5650U with AMD graphics and has 8 GB memory but slots are open for up to 32 GB of memory. This one has no soldered ram. Doesn’t have a backlit keyboard like the Thinkbook though. It’s also only a 256 GB drive.
So I’m thinking about keeping the Windows 11 Pro on it. Not sure whether to install alongside or resize the partition from Windows. I don’t think it will matter much but i haven’t used the installer with install alongside much. I have mostly used replace partition when doing this. I’m not entirely sure if it automatically creates a swap partition? I can’t recall if the option allows for a swap file either. So i guess I will see. The main thing is i don’t have a lot of experience with bitlocker on Windows. I usually don’t use it. On one of the other Lenovo laptops i bought i checked the settings and it wasn’t enabled. I’m not even sure if it was actually on the system or if you enabled it just a notification comes up saying you have to upgrade to the pro version which is what i think it was.
So i guess the question is i guess i need to disable bitlocker first before i can install or partition. Maybe it doesn’t matter for partitioning? Then can i re-enable bitlocker on Windows either after the install. I’m assuming i can. I just don’t want to mess up the installed Windows because they don’t give you recovery with it other than what is installed. I also haven’t decide what to install on it yet? Need to start with these questions first. There won’t be any issues with this hardware as Ryzen just works!
I did flash the UEFI bios manually from Windows also so it’s updated for Ryzen.
If the partition is encrypted, I would definitely resize it from within windows.
I don’t think you have to but I have never tried. Keep in mind, disabling it means decrypting all the data and re-enabling means the opposite. Both operations will take time.
You make one yourself. There is an installed program that lets you create the recovery image onto a USB stick. I would do that first if you care about the pre-installed windows.
I went to the Microsoft page and read a little bit. So it seems the drives come with bitlocker but it is running with a clear key so it is in suspended mode. You have to actually sign in to a Microsoft account in order to encrypt or decrypt the drive. If I am understanding this correctly it’s one of the other reasons I don’t like bitlocker. I think i’ll check the UEFI settings and the bitlocker settings before i attempt this but looks like i can resize the partition since it’s not encrypted. I don’t think I’ll plan on encrypting the drive at any point and just run it suspend mode. I usually run a local account on Windows. I don’t like being logged into a Microsoft account although i do have one and a lot of stuff on Windows doesn’t work unless you are logged on. So this rubs me the wrong way and you can’t uninstall edge either plus it keeps enabling the settings that you turn off. This really annoys me and I put up with it but i don’t like it. Seems to me Microsoft already went through this same scenario with Internet Explorer not being able to be removed years ago. Why this issue is back again with Edge is beyond me. A user should be able to remove it but you can’t. Anyway I’ll dive deeper into it to make a recovery usb just in case.
According to the settings in Windows 11 Pro it say’s the drive is encrypted so I’m not sure? I’m going to turn bitlocker off before i attempt to resize the Windows partition. It may be that bitlocker is on but maybe it’s not actually encrypted yet because I’m not signing into a Microsoft account. The messaging is kind of blurred.
Edit: I clicked on the bitlocker settings and it actually isn’t turned on yet. So the info is correct that it has bitlocker but it’s not enabled. It just say’s the drive is encrypted but technically it’s in suspended mode. Or not enabled from what i see.
Edi2: I have resized the partition by shrinking it in Windows. Just need to install on it now.
Yeah, I can easily agree. And I can see a point in case regarding EnOS too, when it comes to utilizing my thusly awarded status of DEV-ISO-TESTER by the Enos team.
It is just that I’m left out as I can’t make use of it unless I sign into M$ services on GitHub which I really can’t doze… as I usually dig no bull.
No but i thought maybe i could get an answer specifically on Bitlocker as I have never used it. Now i see how mickey mouse the setup is. I’ll never use it anyway.
And yet you open threads on a Linux forum asking for solutions to Windoze problems… (or so it seems to me). No need to answer that one if you don’t insist.
EDIT:
Pls don’t take it as an offense. I am well aware the world is in the hands of M$ et al. …
Not really looking for answers per say. Just more of a I’m not that well versed with how bitlocker is setup and how it works. So i asked and explained what my thoughts were and what i was doing. I have linux installed on it now dual boot with Windoze. I just made sure bitlocker was off and shrunk the Windows partition plus turned off secure boot. I used replace partition with the installer. If the drive was fully encrypted with bitlocker i would have had to un-encrypt it first as far as i can ascertain from reading.
