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View Full Version : [ubuntu] 9.04 and Windows 7? I'm not touching 9.10



Fzang
November 5th, 2009, 01:57 PM
Since 9.10 is very problematic with dual booting, with the new grub and all I was thinking about just dual booting Windows 7 and 9.04 instead.

But I want to make sure; are the boot problems only caused by 9.10 or is there just as many problems with 9.04 together with Windows 7? I'm under the impression that 9.10 and Windows 7 are both so new and undiscovered that they're too far apart to successfully work together.

Mark Phelps
November 5th, 2009, 02:59 PM
I'm multi-booting 9.04 and Win7 without any problems at all.

The combination of Win7 and 9.10 is presenting problems in two areas, though:
1) GRUB2. This is installed by default in NEW 9.10 installations. Folks have reported LOTS of problems gettingh GRUB2 to detect any MS Windows installation, especially Windfows 7.
2) Win7 new partition scheme. On installs to clean drives, Windows 7, unlike its predecessors, installs a new recovery partition first, and then a standard NTFS partition. Folks have reported inability to get GRUB (legacy and GRUB2) working with that new partitioning scheme.

If you UPGRADE an existing 9.04 installation to 9.10, it will NOT install GRUB2. So, if your current setup works OK, that should work OK, too.

But note that folks are reporting other problems with 9.10. So, before you do the upgrade, be sure to boot with a LiveCD to see if you're going to encounter any problems.

ManiacDan
November 5th, 2009, 03:23 PM
I'm dual booting 9.10 (with grub2 manually installed) and WinXP. I've come to learn that all the "omg 9.10 breaks windows 7" posts have actually been related to the double partitions that 7 tends to create.

That being said, it's too early to go to 9.10 anyway, we're still in the "critical bugs being patched" window for the first 30->60 days after release. I'd go with 9.04 and use the upgrade tool to go to 9.10 when you're ready, but don't upgrade to grub2 until it's out of beta and it's confirmed to recognize those win7 partitions.

Mark, you went over 2,000 posts! Congrats!

-Dan