How to safely install Windows 10 as dual-boot without replacing Grub with Windows Boot Loader?

Firstly i would like to say that im pretty sure that this question was asked many times before, but sadly i could find previous answers, so just linking another forums post is very appreciated too!

Like ~1 year ago i fully wiped my laptop and started over with manjaro as my main (and the only) OS, and its awesome! But as with any linux distro, games are supported very barely, driver support is too low (even for ubuntu-based distros) and im a bit bored by playing only a few java games with 30 fps (while on windows they were at 60 always, likely driver issue). I decided to install windows as a second OS, for games, but heard somewhere that windows doesnt care about grub and linux overall and stupidly replaces grub boot point with Windows boot loader. If that’s true, any way to safely install windows without removing grub boot entry?

And no, i didn’t choose manjaro because thought that “its popular and fast i will play games there go brr”, i mainly develop software and game mods on it, playing games is more like a hobby.

Hi @alephm, and welcome!

I believe this is what you’re looking for:

Hope it helps!

→
Install windows first
Install Linux second

Or

  1. Have Linux.
  2. Install Windows.
  3. Repair & reinstall Grub.

But yes, it might be slightly easier to do the other way 'round.

Sadly the article you’ve linked is about installing Manjaro from Windows, while i need the vice-versa: install Windows from Manjaro

As i mentioned in original messages, im using manjaro for about a year and im obviously dont want to lose all my work

(weirdly but) this might be the best solution :open_mouth:

If you make proper backups, then you can always restore your data from mentioned backups. If you don’t, then start doing it! Because, chances are you’ll need 'em for this and/or another emergency.

Also, see

If your computer uses UEFI, grub is not going to be overwrited or deleted. But Windows will put it’s bootloader first in the UEFI list (Manjaro does the same when installing :smiley:). So you only need to change the default boot entry in UEFI’s boot settings.

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To test, run the following:

test -d /sys/firmware/efi && echo efi || echo bios

If the returned value is:

  • efi then you you UEFI/EFI;
  • bios then you use BIOS.

If you install Linux correctly, then you don´t loose your work…