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.
I did that twenty-ish years ago. Linux was and is my OS, but I wanted to play Dungeon Keeper, so I installed Win98 just for this game to autostart in it, and auto-reboot afterwards.
You can run Dungeon Keeper in the linux version of DOSBox now so that’s not really needed anymore. Plus now we have KeeperFX that runs perfectly fine in Wine/Proton and we’re even getting close to a native linux build. :D
If you decide to go the dual-boot route with shared storage between windows and Linux, then I recommend using a btrfs partition. You’ll have to install WinBtrfs to use it on windows, but the experience is a filesystem that’s much better than ntfs on both windows and Linux.
I recently did this, using a VM with GPU passthrough. This meant my Linux OS couldn’t use the GPU while it was active. It’s a pain in the ass, but it technically works. I won’t describe how to do it, because there are good guides online.
Anti-cheat detects when its in a VM and blocks it.
What is the game? If the company hates you so much to do this, you probably shouldn’t support them.
Friends don’t let friends play windows.
I wonder what other hidden rootkits it runs too…
This… we need to show them we’re not going to support them if they pull this. Linux gaming is getting more and more popular. They’ll need to catch up.
the safest fastest but expensive way, get a second drive that’s big enough to run windows and your game. disable the drive from BIOS boot options and add an entry to your bootloader. i salvaged an old 512gb sata to do this for firmware/some legal document things that only work on Windows.
there’s vfio but i believe you still need two video cards to get that working, one for the host one for the vm.
just never trust windows on your main boot drive that only leads to you having to recover your bootloader when a windows update replaces it. and this is not a question of if they will it is a question of when.
If you must run Windows, do it on a completely separate device if you can. That way your one game that’s DRM-locked to Windows can stay on its own machine without Windows getting hostile to your Linux install like in a dual-boot.
If you don’t have/can’t obtain a separate device for installing Windows on and you must dual-boot, the safest way to do that is to disconnect your Linux drive(s), install Windows on its own fresh drive so it can have its own boot partition and its own bootloader, reconnect your Linux drive(s) after your Windows drive is finished setting up, and then set your Linux bootloader, usually GRUB, to query your Windows drive and let you pick it to boot from, that way hopefully Windows stays on its own drive and its own boot partition and doesn’t try to screw over your Linux drive and its boot partition.
What i half remember is that if the windows installer (or Linux installer for that matter) detects an EFI boot partition, it will write to it, regardless of what the software says it will do, which is why we have to do this.
But once windows is installed and grub uses the chainloader method to pass the boot to windows’s bootloader, does that mean that future windows updates will restrict their changes to the windows bootloader? Basically, what risks should I watch out for if Windows is on a drive in the same computer as linux?
I have tried to have separate computers share the same desk, speakers, keyboard, mouse, and dual monitors in the past, but it is not easy or cheap to do well :/
GRUB just queries it so you can pick it and boot from it, it should still be on its own drive if you do as I described with it, or at least it did last time I dual-booted, which was forever 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I know it is probably not the same guy who put his whole show up on YouTube to watch for free during pandemic but it is goodwill nonetheless.
As others has stated, what game is it? Depending on the answer you might not need to install Windows after all.
LTSC is fine, and you can just use massgrave.dev to activate it.
Get the Windows 11 IoT LTSC specifically. IoT is better according to nassgrave, and Windows 11 so you get good compatibility with new games. Not much debloating is needed, just use WinUtil by CTT and tweak/disable shit.
If you want to install Windows on another drive and quite rightly don’t want to pay MS for the privilege, then massgrave is your friend.
Put the installer on a USB, remove your Linux drive (because you should install it on a separate drive, and Microsoft will infect your boot partition otherwise), and run it. That’s it.
Then follow the instructions on massgrave to activate it.
I’ve had Windows cause enough problems with wrecking my Linux boot partition to not want to try this again. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It works fine most of the time. But I’m not willing to risk that rare occasion when windows renders my Linux drive unbootable. Maybe there’s a way to fix the boot partition and I haven’t figured it out. But restoring my whole system is so annoying that I wouldn’t risk it.
So i would recommend that the best option is to consider just ignoring that game and playing the endless number of great games out there that run on Linux already.
I was recommended rEFInd and it’s worked wonders. Never had another boot issue since, and I did like you: physically disconnected all drives except the one I wanted Windows on. Still messed up my boot settings.
Recommend you give it a try if you dare go again.
I have a windows install on a USB hard-drive. It’s not fast but that might not be a problem if you use a fast USB storage. I just plug it in and boot from it via UEFI.
This is what I do, just a spare nvme drive thrown in an external enclosure. Rufus has an option called “windows to go” that installs the iso as opposed to making a bootable installer, and it gives an option to block Windows from overwriting local disks to avoid the boot loader issues too. Has worked quite well up until a point recently where it just refused to boot anymore with an unhelpful error despite not having been touched in months. No updates or changes since it worked before. Good ol windows…
I was installing Win10 Pro to a SSD that I would stick in an external case. Would work, for a while, but eventually would get an error and would be unable to boot, or repair it. Windows seems to be designed to know when it’s installed on an external drive, and to hose itself out of spite. I gave up after the fourth time, resigned to the fact I just had to find an alternative CAD software package that I could access from Linux.
just a spare nvme drive thrown in an external enclosure
A spare NVME? In this economy?
Probably from the previous economy
Hah, I had written then deleted a part because the comment was already pretty long saying it almost has the same energy as “my spare yacht” at the moment. Reaaaally glad I had the foresight/luck with timing I did on keeping components around. Can’t wait for some bubbles to burst
You can do one of three, for different levels of ease and performance:
- Install boxes/gnome-boxes, install the windows os on a virtual machine. Just press the plus to choose an iso file and go.
- If you have an extra hard drive, you can install windows on that hard drive, and have to set up grub to recognise it.
- Change the partition size of your hd using a live cd/usb version of Linux (you can’t change partition size on partitions that are in use) , make a new partition and install windows on that partition. Add this new OS to grub.
You will need to do further research on some of the stuff I said, but I gave you the correct things to look up.
They go down in order of difficulty. Boxes will be less efficient but easiest. The other two have the same efficiency, but the second is a bit more challenging
I am not an expert on Windows game rootkits (or Windows in general…), but would it perhaps run in a VM?
At least then you wouldn’t have to do a “real” install…Nah, that used to be a solution a few years back if you had the patience to setup GPU-passthrough with a single or two GPUs. But these anticheat rootkits now detect a running VM and deny you service either way.
Dualbooting Windows 10 LTSC with massgrave activation seems to be the best option for now if you really nee…want a Windows installation with GPU acceleration. For Nongaming/Rendering tasks: Winboat.
I played Forza Horizon 6 pirated like this. It isn’t an easy solution, but it worked for that one. I’m not saying it’ll work for anything else, but it does work for Denuvuwu.
Ugh, I feel you on this. Can’t help unfortunately because I just bit the bullet and dual boot, there’s just one or two games that don’t work well for me on Linux. Best of luck
