Dual Booting with windows 8?

[Sim]

Anyone got experience with setting up dual booting with windows 8?


I don't have a windows 8 re-install DVD as I bought this laptop from a pawn-shop and I fuck this up, i'll be pretty damn upset. Anyone got a link to a "reliable source" I want to install windows xp on it also.

[Jackolantern]

I think Microsoft has a tool that makes this easy to do, but I am having trouble finding it. If I am remembering right, they used to have it on Dreamspark even though it was free, but have since removed it.

[vitinho444]

What about people that have Windows 8 from factory? I have a ultrabook with Windows 8 (already pre-installed) and I was thinking dual booting with a linux distro for "wannabe" stuff and also to be my secure OS since I'm always afraid to do some stuff on windows because I might have something here spying on me.

[a_bertrand]

Honestly I would not set a dual boot. Why not use virtual box and run a vm of what you want ?

[Jackolantern]

Honestly I would not set a dual boot. Why not use virtual box and run a vm of what you want ?

I am wondering since he wants Windows XP if it has to do with playing older games, since XP was the last Windows OS that would flawlessly play pre-Vista games. If that is the case, Virtual Box would likely cause some serious performance issues unless he has a truly epic amount of RAM and like 16 CPUs.

[vitinho444]

My problem with Virtual Box is that it screws up my ethernet port, and without it my eth connection is instant as i boot, with Virtual Box it stays loading like 2 minutes, and all my startup apps need the instant internet connection.

[a_bertrand]

Never had any problem with virtual box, but you can try others like VMWare player.

[Jackolantern]

It isn't Virtual Box per se, just the fact that it is a virtual machine. There is always a performance hit for running Virtual Machines. A high-end machine could probably run games well on a virtual machine, but mid-range computers may have a problem.

[a_bertrand]

I was answering to vitinho44 jack
And of course there is an impact on the performances, but you will most likely feel it on the GUI side not on normal "office" operations. So if you play a game, that may actually not playable. If you use Office, then it should be ok.

[Jackolantern]

Ahh, OK that makes sense lol