Do I need to update Windows 11 on a Windows / Linux Mint dual boot system?
Hey guys,
I use my laptop with a Windows 11 / Linux Mint dual-boot system.
Since I actually use Linux Mint 98% of the time, I wanted to ask if it is still necessary to do the system and security updates for Windows 11 as long as Windows is not needed?
If you are asking if not updating Windows will make your Mint system insecure, the answer is no. At least to me an exploit leveraging an unmounted Windows partition is unheard of. It will of course make your Windows system less secure for the 2% of the time you do use it. Another side effect of updating it is that it may break your dual booting.
Thanks for the answer. I was unsure whether it could be dangerous to the PC itself if you ignore the updates for both operating systems.
Yes, I've also read about problems with dual-boot systems after Windows updates, which is why I've refused to use Windows too often to make the updates worthwhile.
Yes, I’ve also read about problems with dual-boot systems after Windows updates, which is why I’ve refused to use Windows too often to make the updates worthwhile.
Sometimes Windows just overwrites GRUB (or whatever you use on your system) bootloader. But it's relatively easy to fix using your distro's installation media. Just in case this happens you need to refer to your distro's documentation or community forums to fix it.
I do recommend however in the future to not put Windows and Linux on the same disk, but have 2, each for respective OS. That way, there's no way Windows will ever touch your Linux bootloader, and you can still allow GRUB (or other bootloader) to chain-load Windows boot manager from the other disk.
The PC itself as in hardware? Hardly... Your data is at risk. So ignoring updates for both Mint and Windows will put you at a more vulnerable position from a security standpoint.
What about those 2% days when you do need windows? Every time you boot to it, you’ll have gigabytes of updates waiting for you, which is seriously annoying. In order to do “just one thing real quick”, you’ll end up wasting an hour each time. I propose you make those days less infuriating, by booting up windows a bit more frequently.
Ideally, you would just uninstall it entirely, and use the disk space for Linux. Unfortunately, many people still have some ties that are difficult to break, so I totally get it why dual booting exists. If that one thing you do in windows doesn’t require much performance, you could also dedicate some old heap of junk laptop for it.
Or just ditch the Windows partition/drive and use a VM instead.
Really depends on how you intend to use Windows. Once upon a time I thought that was a great solution for communicating with an ancient piece of windows specific hardware. Turns out, you really need to keep that old W98 computer around unless you are willing to upgrade to new analysis hardware that costs about as much as a nice car. Home users probably never run into issues like this.
Just be aware that updating windows can cause your bootloader to change, so booting back into Linux might be a challenge. Note that I said might.
One thing to note, if you are using UEFI this is very unlikely to happen. It was designed from the start to have multiple boot options and Windows itself often has multiple entries. It is very rare for a Windows update to mess with any other boot options in UEFI.
During those rare times that you boot into Windows 11, go ahead and update it.
I wouldn't go out of your way and boot into it for the sole purpose of keeping it updated tho.
Thanks, I'll update it from time to time when I need it.
It seems the other answers already covered what you needed to know, so I won't be redundant here. Pro tip: if you rarely use your Windows installation, you might consider moving it into a virtual machine that you can conveniently boot from within your running Linux system. This way you wouldn't need the dual boot anymore, which might be desirable for various reasons.
But if the Windows has an OEM license, it can't be used inside a VM, as far as I understand.
You can just use an activation script. Even though technically Windows won't be activated using the OEM license in a VM, the license is still present on the machine. So legally Windows is still licensed. To get around the thing not automatically activating, an activation script is an easy fix.
This is a good activation script:
Another big plus of that approach: If your laptop or PC breaks, you can just move the VM image with Windows exactly like any other file you have backed up (you do backups, don't you?) to the new hardware and use it as before. This esoecially breaks the problem of forced OS upgrades if the new hardware does not support the old windows version, or you do not have the installer and license keys any more, but the new Windows version does not support your old documents, media formats, or pheriperals like scanners.
Also, if you modify your Windows install and it might break, you can just make a snapshot of the VM image - which is a copy of a file - and restore it when needed.
You can legally buy second-market OEM licenses. They are not that expensive, and do not expire. And, older versions of Windows are much slimmer and boot much faster, though it is not a good idea to connect them to the Internet - instead, one would block connections between VM and Internet. Which is anyway much better from a privacy perspective.
Put it in a VM, more flexible than dual boot. You can even just make a image of the partitions cp /dev/nvmexx /path/to/part.img and add it to the VM.