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I'm starting an Open University Maths degree soon. I'm being sent Mathcad as part of the course. It relies on .NET so doesn't seem to work in Wine. I'm therefore going to buy Windows 7 and dual boot.

I understand installing Windows isn't as user-friendly as installing Ubuntu so, to try and preserve my sanity, I wanted to know which approach is easier to get working:

  1. Keep my Ubuntu 12.04 system and install a Windows 7 partition using the Windows 7 disk; or
  2. Install Windows 7, wiping Ubuntu in the process, then install an Ubuntu 12.04 partition using a Live CD and restore from a backup?
Garry Cairns
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2 Answers2

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Although possible, it isn't advisable to install Windows side by side an already installed Linux OS. Windows may destroy your Linux partition if you are not careful to specify a separate partition when running the installer. And Windows will definitely destroy GRUB (your boot manager). To be safe, I would install Windows first, then install Ubuntu. In other words, option 2.

Also, virtualization extensions aren't a requirement for Virtualbox if you wanted to go the virtualization route, they are just recommended and provide performance enhancements.

Eliah Kagan
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reverendj1
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There is no problem if Windows installation replaces GRUB in MBR. You can always add a "boot sector loader" to Windows 7 boot manager and boot Linux/Unix from Windows.

See here how to dual boot Windows 7 with any Linux or Unix descendant like Fedora, Ubuntu or FreeBSD for example.

snayob
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