I was thinking of downloading windows 10 on my computer without removing zorin (i need it for school), and i would like to freely switch between operating systems. Is there any way to do this?
Options include Dual Boot or using one of your operating systems in a Virtual Drive.
It is. Thanks for fixing that.
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I've heard that it is possible, but difficult to install Windows as a secondary. One of the reasons, other than ignoring your partitioning, is that it will overwrite grub with windows boot manager, ignoring any other installed OSs. Usually, for the minimal amount of issues, Windows is installed first, then any other OSs.
In order to make this easier, if you follow [HOW TO] Easily reinstall programs when Reinstalling Zorin to backup your installed programs, copy your home folder and you will have little to modify on reinstall.
Windows 10 can't just be downloaded and installed ... well it can but ...
Let's say you wiped your drive after backing it up. Indeed you could install Windows 10 but it will need activating - if you don't have an earlier version of Windows to upgrade to Windows 10 then M$ will direct you to their store to purchase a licence. I have heard in the past that genuine licences could be bought on line very cheaply, but how valid they are in the long run I don't know. However, if it is for school then you would be covered by the Schools Educational Licencing agreement but for that to be effective you would have take your Notebook into school and let the IT Technicians do their thing which would end up having your computer locked down with no other OS allowed on it.
I have a family member who recently had notification that their Windows 8.1 was no longer supported and they need Windows for work related material. They could have opted for Windows 10 but that is EOL (End Of Life) in October 2025. I initially installed Windows 11 to a second hard drive that sounded like it was dying in the hot swap bay. I had made the mistake of installing whilst connected to the internet - if you do this, M$ asks you for your M$ account and password. So I started over without connection to the network and attempted to use Windows Media Creation tool that fell over twice, having had to take an upgrade to Windows 10 on the installed Windows 8.1 before being able to move up to Windows 11. The upgrade from the Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 surprisingly went without upsetting the applications or files from Windows 8.1. The user wanted Windows 11 to save the hassle of upgrading in 2025. So with the M$ media creation tool falling over, twice, even after disabling all potential problem makers such as AV and anti-malware products I used Ventoy which worked. When I had tried to activate Windows 11 before creating the upgrade of 8.1 to 10 it was asking for £219.99 to activate Windows 11. After I had cloned the failing drive with Windows 11 to an SSD and rebooted, Windows 11 had been activated with a digital licence! On a side note using Microsoft's Installation Assistant reported that the hardware was not compatible as it did not have TPM 2.0 - it wasn't needed and there was no BIOS update from the manufacturer - but it still installed! The only thing that had to be turned on was UEFi in the BIOS and Windows Boot Manager selected in CSM.
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