I’ve heard dual booting Linux and Windows isn’t a good idea because Windows Update will nuke the Linux boot loader, so I’ve avoided doing that.
For a very long, technical, and complicated reason, I still need Windows because one piece of software that I absolutely MUST have is only compatible with Windows. No, there is no alternative software available for my use case; none, zero, not any, at all. I’ve already tried running it within many different VMs, using many different hypervisors, and I’ve already tried Wine; they aren’t an option, the software isn’t stable in those cases. I don’t want to get in the weeds about it, so please just accept that I NEED some version of Windows installed.
Since Windows 10 doesn’t receive updates anymore, can I dual boot Linux and Windows 10 without worrying about whether Windows Update will break anything? I intend to keep Windows on one drive and Linux on another. Windows would only be used when I need to run this one specific program, which is maybe five or ten hours per week. The rest of the time, I’d be using Linux.


I’ve dual booted every version of Windows since XP, often on the same drive. I’ve never had the bootloader get nuked. Windows 11 just installed a bunch of big updates without a problem. You’ll probably be fine.
I’ve done the same and have the seen the bootloader get changed in a way that prevented one or the other from booting.
The risk is there.
No doubt. I can’t just have had 20+ years of good luck though, right? I think the risk is relatively small.
What do you mean? Just swappes boot order in BIOS?