Dual boot Windows 11 home / Zorin 18 Pro decision or something else?

Installing Zorin OS
21

Hey Philipp,
I had a somewhat similar situation with my daily use laptop. I really wanted to get away from windows but I use quicken to manage my bank accounts and credit card accounts. Quicken does not have a Linux version yet. (one day, I hope..) anyway, I had already switched my old HP desktop to Ubuntu, an older laptop to Zorin 17 and my wife's laptop to Zorin 17. All 3 were not compatible with windows 11. I finally decided to switch my daily use laptop to Zorin 18 last weekend. (yikes!) I created a backup image of my laptop, copied some important files to Dropbox took a breath and installed Zorin 18 directly to my hard drive. Worked beautifully. I then installed the virtual machine manager (QEMU/KVM). I then installed a bare bones windows 10 image in the virtual machine, downloaded/installed the quicken app in windows 10 and then downloaded my quicken data file from Dropbox. Cranked it up and everything worked perfectly. Now I use Zorin all day and when I want to run the quicken app I fire up the virtual session and do what I need to do.
If this is a brand new PC then you need to load all your data files anyway.
I assume (I know, I know) that if your wife doesn't have a Microsoft account she hasn't done a lot in windows already. Let her spend her learning time learning Linux/Zorin.

Just do some research on installing the virtual machine manager and windows OS within , there are a ton of YouTube videos available.

Lots of luck!

22

Thank you very much for all your replies and tips.

II finally decided to install Zorin 18 Pro on an external hard-drive. I created a live-stick in Mint. To prevent my system to break, I disconnected all my hard-drives (I have an old fashioned minitower PC that gives my easy access to the hard-drives) and just pluged in both the live-stick and the external drive. So I can install Zorin on that drive.

For the laptop, I will leave Windows 11 untouched but only disable fastboot and secure boot so I can boot from the external drive.

The drawback of this is, that I need to install Zorin 18 again one day (if finally chosen as one and only operating system). But that is acceptable while both systems can be used in the future.

Thank you again.
Philipp

23

Hello everyone,

again, thank you for your replies.

We finally decided to install Zorin 18 Pro as the only OS on the laptop.

I have one final question:
The laptop is still brand new - not a single boot till today.

Would it be better to run Windows 11 home for once (including creating the online account) and then get rid of it again or directly install Zorin. Will that do any harm to the laptop since Windows activation code is in the BIOS?

Thank you!
Philipp

1 Like
24

You can install it directly, yes. But don't forget to disabled Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS.

Don't You have somewhere on the Machine a Sticker with the Code?

Also: I would suggest to start Zorin first in Live Mode to see if Your new Hardware will work with it.

26

I would run the VBS code to establish your Windows 11 Licence Key before replacing it, write it down or print it out in Note/WordPad and keep it safe. Also Windows appears to be updating Windows 11 every year/2 years so if you are using 25H2 then get a copy while you can, just in case.

" To retrieve your Windows license key using a VBScript, follow these steps:

  1. Open Notepad.
  2. Copy and paste the following script into Notepad:
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\DigitalProductId"))

Function ConvertToKey(Key)
    Const KeyOffset = 52
    i = 28
    Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
    Do
        Cur = 0
        x = 14
        Do
            Cur = Cur * 256
            Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
            Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255
            Cur = Cur Mod 24
            x = x - 1
        Loop While x >= 0
        i = i - 1
        KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
        If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
            i = i - 1
            KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput
        End If
    Loop While i >= 0
    ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End Function
  1. Save the file with a .vbs extension, such as GetProductKey.vbs , ensuring the "Save as type" is set to "All Files".
  • Double-click the saved .vbs file to run it. A message box will appear displaying your Windows product key.

This script works on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and 11.

It reads the DigitalProductId from the Windows registry and decodes it into the standard product key format.

Alternatively, you can use the built-in WMI command in an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell window to retrieve the original product key stored in the UEFI/BIOS.

Run the following command in an admin Command Prompt:

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

Or in PowerShell:

(Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService').OA3xOriginalProductKey

This method retrieves the firmware-embedded product key, which is typically used for OEM systems.

If the output is blank, the device does not have a firmware-embedded key."

Just remember that in Windows Home you can't stop the nag screens for products and the other shenaningans that Windows 11 does like copilot, one drive etc. In Professional editions you can block the usual Windows 11 detritis.

27

Thank you for your replies!

Yeah, it might be a good idea to boot Windows first and get the licence key - thank you for the script.

I'll give it a shot.