I’ve seen several topics lately regarding issues dual-booting Windows (Grub issues, or WIFI issues, or any other multitude of dual-boot issues).
I get the need for some Linux beginners and newbies needing a dual-boot scenario. Topics/threads like those make me realize how happy I am that I haven’t had Windows on any of my PCs or laptops in well over a decade.
How many of you still dual-boot and why?
I haven’t dual booted since 2003/4 when I realised I hadn’t booted Windows for 6 months let alone updated it, I reinstalled Linux, giving it the whole hard drive.
Similar here. About 2012 I realized I hadn’t booted into Windows for ages. I had it there more as a crutch, or training wheels when I no longer needed such things. I was dual-booting Windows and Fedora at the time. Reinstalled Fedora, wiping Windows at the time. So glad I did, I never looked back. And I sure as hell do NOT miss Windows.
I have been using Linux since 2009(or 08, can’t remember exactly), I stopped dual-booting in 2011. At work I still have a Windows laptop but I use it to rdp to my Linux virtual workstation.
I still dual boot.
Windows 10 and Void on the desktop. That computer will not run Windows 11 (no loss there) so it will go until Win 10 crashes and augers in.
This laptop is dual booting Windows 11 and Void.
I only dual boot from two dedicated drives these days. Too many hassles trying to dual boot from one drive.
The only reasons I dual boot are that the school district (daughter in high school) pretty much requires Windows, and there are QA/QC requirements for my wife’s place of employment. Can’t run non-Windows there. There are some old-timers there that are running their code on *BSD systems (mostly FreeBSD) but there are reams of paperwork to fill out for them to keep their systems.
So I have some Windows and Windows software mainly as backup.
Otherwise, I would be Windows free.
I don’t boot windows I look out of them 
I still have Windows on some of my laptops and one desktop. Is it a trust issue when dealing with online purchases etc? I don’t know? I’ve just always kept Windows alongside. There are things one learns from having both. Just how bad Windows really can be is one of them.
Well, technically I’m only dual-booting in virtual machines; my EOS Xfce installation is untainted. As far as using dual-boots, I still have (2) use-cases:
I‘m using Windows 11 in Dualboot. But I start Windows rarely. Often I have to install updates, when starting Windows. Don’t know if and when I delete Windows.
I still have a dusty Windows installation I used to fire up once a year to do my taxes, but this year I’m trying to find another solution to this problem, cause it’s the only lasting reason for me to boot into windows and I finally want to get rid of it.
I possess a windows license key and it’s installed, do I run it? Well I had to re-install to prove a hardware defect (to the satisfaction of the vendor), but I don’t use it and don’t plan to. It’s kinda nice to have it available, since it costs me nothing but storage space.
I have Windows still installed on a separate hard drive on my desktop, but has been disconnected for over a year since updates on 11 kept messing up my boot partition.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on the forum, my Win 10 install of course falls out of ESU support in Oct 2026 but I don’t use it often, and not eligible for “upgrade”. I recently made a final system image just in case, but I plan on trying out EOS Gnome on it some day when I get around to it. Maybe try Windows in a VM? Never tried that before…
It has a 500 GB SSD and a 1 TB mechanical drive that I’ll format in ext4 and put aside and replace with a second 500 GB SSD I have laying about. No rush…
We have a Win 11 cheap laptop that my wife uses daily (if it ain’t broke why fix it) and is needed for tax time, as others have mentioned
I got ride of the garbage(Windows) Only running EndeavourOS! 
My wife’s PC runns Windows 10 with updates to next year so next year i will Upgrade it to Linux(EndeavourOS of course).
When I made the switch some years back now, I went all in, boot(loader)s and all. What made the step easier was while still using Windows, first transitioning my applications to what would later use under Linux.
Adobe Premiere > DaVinci Resolve Studio
Adobe Camera Raw > RawTherapee
Adobe Photoshop / Affinity Photo > Gimp
Adobe Illustrator > Inkscape
etc… there were many I’d been using for a long time already, such as LibreOffice, Audacity, VLC. It meant that the transition was OS only, retaining familiar applications.
Once comfortable, I repeated that on the other four PC’s in the household.
I had been running Windows 10 in a VM for some development work. Recently I migrated that license to an old NUC I pulled back out of the cupboard, and again, for development work. It’s rarely turned on.
I haven’t used windows for at least two years. I got so fed up with the updates taking so long and breaking the system. Before that, I guess I was just a glutton for punishment.
My Dual Boot experience:
Actor John Hurt = Linux
The thing inside John Hurt = WIN
Answer to post question: NO 
I have one pc that has windows 10 on it. I keep it because I like a particular composite video capture card. Something about analog electronics, theyre all slightly different and this particular one has a good “look.” I use it to capture old footage and occasionally old video game runs. It doesnt run under linux without some major hacking and patching. I also keep 10 to run a Cricut machine. But thats it.
I was a Windows XP holdout, still had it running in 2016 and I kept Windows 7 until this year. I dual booted with it and different linux distros for probably over a decade. Unlike win10, it didn’t seem to destroy GRUB every chance it got, nor did it randomly reboot and try to update. But I decided I knew enough linux material, and Steam finally jumped ship to linux, and that was the last thing holding me back before I nuked 7 this year. Every other possible thing I have, seems to work fine under Wine if I absolutely need it. Do I miss XP and 7? Of course. Linux is still missing much of the GUI simplicity and expected “interworkings” between programs like copy/pasting, much due to the sheer volume of desktop environments and different methods/implementations of doing things. But it’s come far enough to work.
If I truly had one complaint, its that no one has managed to make Winamp work and be stable as well as the AMAZING Milkdrop visualization plugin for it (or make it simple enough to work with a few clicks.) I don’t really listen to music anymore, and it sounds stupid, but I used to leave Winamp+Milkdrop running to play music, and without it I just cant bring myself to use my pc as an audio player/awesome color making thingy on the other side of the room while I do other stuff. Winamp used to work with anything whether audio or video if you had the proper codecs installed. Literally a God-Tier program for playing audio/video.
Also, If I may make a bold statement, no other media player made has as good of a “media library” or its level of organization as winamp had. Not even one comes close.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I may reinstall winamp on that god awful windows 10 machine….. and hook it to the home theater system…
HAHaAHAHHAha
short story is i dual booted since probably 2005ish and quit in 2025. Sorry, I type fast and like to chirp.
