Can I install Windows 10 preview without losing my Pups?

[Mike Walsh]

Evening all.

I'm thinking of installing the Win 10 preview. I'm curious as to whether others think my PC will be able to run it; and if so, can I do so without losing control of my 'Pups'?

My Compaq Presario PC used to run XP, but I waved bye-bye to MS last year, and have been running Linux exclusively ever since. Started with the 'buntus, and moved to Puppy full-time about 3 months ago.

To quote Microsoft:-

"System requirements

Basically, if your PC can run Windows 8.1, you're good to go. If you're not sure, don't worry – Windows will check your system to make sure it can install the preview.

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster

RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)

Free hard disk space: 16 GB

Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

A Microsoft account and Internet access"

I'm running an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ dual core, with SSE3's. I have 3 GB RAM, a WD 160 GB HDD, and I use the integrated onboard graphics (an ATI Xpress 200 graphics chip). I don't use a graphics card, as the sole PCI-e x 16 slot is faulty.

I currently have 38 GB spare on the hard drive, which I feel should be enough.

According to MS, "Some PC processors and hardware configurations aren't supported by Insider Preview, including a small number of older, 64-bit CPUs..." Now I'm guessing this possibly covers stuff like my CPU. These were released onto the market on Aug 1, 2005.....10 years ago.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-At ... OX%29.html

Will this run Win 10? I ask, too, because I know all MS stuff these days is designed to work with all this EFI, 'fast-boot', 'secure boot', and so forth. My old girl uses old-fashioned BIOS and an MBR.

The other thing I'm wondering about is whether I could regain control of my Pups with Grub4DOS after the install.....since I know full well that Win 10 will overwrite the MBR with all the UEFI crap; and the usual advice is to install Windows first, followed by Linux second.

I have no intentions of re-installing four Pups..!

What's the consensus of opinion? Would I be wasting my time.....or is it do-able?


Regards,

Mike.

[bigpup]

Here is a few ideas.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/try-window ... ing-linux/

[Mike Walsh]

Hey, bigpup.

Thanks for the link, and for looking into it for me. It led me into all sorts of weird and obscure ways of doing this, that & the other.....

The general consensus of opinion is that you can do this, but only with a great deal of aggravation & registry editing...no thanks. As we all know, Windows (whatever flavour), if given as much as half-a-chance, will take over your machine and hold it to ransom.....

You know something? I think my system is fine as it is. I came to Linux to get away from the hyper-complex techno-babble of Windows... I must be mad to even consider wanting to return to the insanity of MyCrudSoft! I certainly have no reason to need it for anything (thank goodness)....

I think I'll put the episode down to a brief case of 'temporary fruit-cake syndrome'...!

'Rave on...' (..ouch!!!)


Regards,

Mike.

[bigpup]

A brief contact with the influence of the dark side.

[grump]

I run Win 10 Preview on this modest laptop (HP Pavilion dm1) and I also run my pups on it - BUT I only run live pups from CD or USB because I do not like multiple boot menus stuffing around with the HDD.

Currently running Fatdog64 from a USB.

btw the preview runs nicely with 4Gb ram.

As I recall the Win 10 Preview installation assumes that you already have Win 7 or 8 already installed - I don't think the installation options are as comprehensive as 'full' versions of Windows where you can tell it to partition part of a disk for the installation.

If you have a spare HDD lying around why not swap that into the Compaq just to try Win 10?