A question on Windows 8/Linux

[IanAshworth]

Hi Guys, looking if I can get a definitive answer on this before I start wasting my time if it's not possible.

Last year I bought a laptop with Windows 8 preinstalled.

I logged in once to see what it was like then immediately installed Ubuntu (which is what I intended to do from the start)

I now want to create a dual boot Windows/Ubuntu machine but don't have a disc/product code/installed Windows version to extract the product code from.

I did some research and it seems W8, when preinstalled, has the licence coded into the BIOS, so I should be able to reinstall W8 by downloading it from the WIndows website.

My question is, can I then upgrade to W10, then create a dual-boot machine to run Ubuntu too?

Will there be any problems doing this? (all Windows jokes aside :-/)

I really like Ubuntu but I really miss Illustrator and Lightroom :-(

 

[ancient_mariner]

Yes, you should be able to do this, as long as you can activate W8 OK first and then get it fully updated. It might be worth downloading W10 and creating a bootable memory stick to do the update, and once your machine has been updated once you can then install from scratch without having to re-activate it. Ubuntu isn't my first choice of Linux, but it usually plays OK with windows.

 

[dejongj]

I would confirm for definite you have the code before removing Windows.

Alternatively just run Linux in a virtual machine.