How to avoid Win7/Win8 dual-boot hassles

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LANGALIST PLUS

How to avoid Win7/Win8 dual-boot hassles

By Fred Langa There are several ways to run both Windows 7 and Windows 8 on the same PC, but some methods are significantly easier — and safer — to set up. Plus: A disappointing Secunia PSI failure and free, pro-quality tutorials for PowerShell, the apparent successor to the classic command window.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/langalist-plus/how-to-avoid-win7win8-dual-boot-hassles/ (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

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This is in relation to the Secunia problem in the article. There IS a fix which is at https://secunia.com/community/forum/thread/show/15187/secunia_wont_load. I set out the fix from El Gato with my supplement which speak for themselves:
El Gato: …it occurred to me that the program was not seeing an open and functional network connection. The Secunia PSI agent service was running. So I stopped it and changed the service login from the local service to a login with my user name. The advanced options on the service login tab show how to do it. Started up the service again, The icon is red and showed one program had to be updated. Still very slow to open. Finally the need a scan screen showed up and ran the scan. The green bar finally showed up and the scan completed.
If anyone is more articulate in explaining how to do this on a service, please jump in.

Me: I post this also to make one additional point. If like me you use a standard account for normal operations, that login will NOT work for the service. You must use the login for your administrator account. Good luck to all that have this odd problem.

I hope this is helpful to you and Wayne.

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I also dual-boot with Ubuntu Linux. My Windows partition is Windows 7 Home Premium.

Yes, GRUB2 does take over as Boot Manager when installing Ubuntu. This actually works better than trying any of the Windows dual-boots I used while I was experimenting with Windows 8. GRUB seems to know all it needs to know about Windows bootloaders and other stuff. And if GRUB has issues, there is a boot disk (independent CD) which has a one-button GRUB fixer. Works on most Windows-Linux conflict issues I’ve encountered so far.

On the Windows side, EasyBCD seems to do a decent job of managing the dual-boot if GRUB has not taken over as Boot Manager. Again, there are tools, some available from a Boot Disk, for EasyBCD, which can help take care of any issues which may arise between different Windows versions or Windows and Linux.

But it is also true, as the article says, that a Virtual PC is safer and easier to get rid of and start over, if anything goes wrong with either OS. So I am not sure I would dual-boot again under Windows 10, even if I find I still like to do some things in Linux. Linux would be my choice as host OS, but Win 10 Pro would probably rather I would use its Hyper-V and make Linux the Guest OS. That’s a bit complicated with GRUB2, but it can be done.

-- rc primak

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Another comment on the Secunia problem.
It’s happened to me before and I traced it to MalwareBytes. When I installed MalwareBytes and ran it, it finds “PUPS” in Secunia and quarantines them. Then Secunia can’t connect to the internet.
My fix: I uninstalled MalwareBytes, uninstalled/reinstalled Secunia PSI then reinstalled MalwareBytes BUT before running it I went to options/exceptions and made sure that the Secunia folder was excluded from scanning. Works for me.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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Win10 is likely to have a locked UEFI, so things like dual boot with another Windows partition and/or Linux, will be a thing of the past.

To clarify, Secure Boot may be on and not have an option ton disable it. That will be left to the manufacturers to decide.

UEFI by itself does not prevent multi-partition, multi-OS, multi-boot disks.

-- rc primak

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