There is a game I am considering getting; it has been out for a few months now, and the devs are specifically blocking it from running under proton with a Kernel Level Anticheat which specifically blocks linux.

Folks on the discussion boards made the point tht it is technically possible to install windows for just one steam game, so I am looking for a guide on how to do that?

I’ve heard that if you don’t activate windows, you can still use it, and if you get the LSTC (?) Version of windows, it is not so annoying.

Does anyone have a guide for how to install windows alongside linux for one game?

If we have a discussion in the comments about whether it is tactically appropriate to give money to a game corporation that requires windows, i guess we can, but i would rather learn how to install windows in the least annoying way possible.

  • Err(()).unwrap()@lemmy.worldEnglish
    80·
    4 days ago

    If you want to dual-boot Windows and Linux, I strongly recommend that you install them on separate devices, and physically disconnect your Linux device. It’s a pain in the ass, but Windows Update has a particular appetite for bootloaders and will eventually eat whatever you have on your EFI partition (including the Linux kernel and ramdisk) and replace it with its own.

    Otherwise, you can use Chris Titus’ winutil script to delay or completely disable updates, and also to debloat the system and disable anti-features like telemetry and the start menu search.

    Not sure if this applies to LTSC, but if you can, install a European edition of Windows (-N suffix) and set an EU location and timezone, it will allow you to more easily uninstall components because of EU regulations.

    • Bronzie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      151·
      4 days ago

      I physically disconnected all drives to force the EFI partition on the actual Windows drive. It still shat all over boot settings after the first major update.

      Someone recommended I try rEFInd and it’s been great. No update has forced me back into the UEFI to set boot order since.

      Might be an ASUS MB thing, I never figured it out or bothered afterwards.

      • Err(()).unwrap()@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        4 days ago

        There are interfaces that allow a sufficiently privileged process to change EFI settings from the OS. Those settings are stored in the UEFI chipset, independent from the bootloader.

        • Klajan@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          I really hope Windows doesn’t alter that. My Gigabyte motherboard forced me to boot into windows after a hios update, because the Linux bootloader was not registered…

          • Err(()).unwrap()@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            3 days ago

            Don’t even get me started on fucking Gigabyte. With all my heart,

            FUCK GIGABYTE.

            It is the single worst manufacturer I’ve ever had to deal with in both a personal and professional capacity. We’ve had to RMA half a classroom over the last two years because of busted motherboards. In separate incidents, two power supplies violently self-destructed and took the motherboards and CPUs with them. My own Gigabyte 2060 Super’s fans had to be replaced within two years because the bearings were crap.

            Worse, even the motherboards that didn’t mercifully explode are a fucking chore because Gigabyte’s UEFI implementation is the worst on the fucking planet. No two versions work alike. Some options are in completely different menus. Sometimes CSM or SecureBoot are busted out of the box. If PXE is enabled (which we have to use frequently), it will ALWAYS put PXE at the start of the boot order. And if it can’t connect to a PXE server, it doesn’t fall back to the next boot option. It gracefully shits itself and sits on an error message until someone manually restarts it and interrupts the process.

            Fuck Gigabyte.

    • untorquer@quokk.auEnglish
      9·
      4 days ago

      Agreeing with others that grub on separate device from windows then just register windows boot in grub and point bios to grub.

      Windows, for all its fuckery, doesn’t screw with that of which it has no awareness.

    • osprior@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      4 days ago

      I can confirm you only need to physically disconnect the non-windows target drive during installation, and as long as you offline the remaining drives after connecting them, windows and other drives will be fine with updates (THIS is the most important part, do it in Disk Management on first boot into windows).

      I’ve run two Windows instances for years, through multiple OS major updates and never had problems with this setup, before doing the offline drive change to each of them, they would both fuck over each other (I had one for work and one for personal).

      One thing I did that may be necessary, is I didn’t let a boot loader handle the dual boot, I only used BIOS to manage changing the boot target when switching over - I was doing dual windows boots at the time so this may actually be fine with grub, so ymmv on that front.