Arch Linux - Moving to Dual Boot w/ Windows

Question

So I'm an intermediate-level Linux user (I've run things like Ubuntu in the past but I'm still learning lots) - recently I got fed up with Windows and decided to install Arch. Having done so, I suddenly realized I wouldn't be able to play any of my Steam games and concluded that I'll need a Windows partition for that.

All the guides I've seen online have recommended installing Windows and THEN Arch, and I'm struggling to understand why that's the case.

I mean, couldn't I just boot into my Arch livecd, use fdsik to resize my Linux partition (which is currently the only one on the disk), create an NTFS partition with what's left, install Windows and then reconfigure GRUB to include the Windows partition in the boot options? Or am I oversimplifying and missing something? I suppose it's possible that Windows will change the MBR somehow and make itself the default boot partition but if that happens I can always just head into a GParted livecd and make my Linux partition the boot, can't I?

Answer 1

All the guides I've seen online have recommended installing Windows and THEN Arch, and I'm struggling to understand why that's the case.

Windows installer will rewrite boot information on your disk, so they recommended installing Windows before Linux.

Of course you can use live CD to set up GRUB after installing Windows. There is no difference between this way and installing Windows before Linux.

Answer 2

Actually, it doesn't really matter, as you said, you can always change it by livecd.

But I would recommend using the Windows boot manager as, Windows will fail to update every time it needs to reboot and will terribly nag you about it¹. I would recommend installing Linux and then Windows. After that, you need to add GRUB to Windows boot loader using a program like EasyBCD. It makes booting slower, but this way Windows will be up to date.

¹ It will try to install the updates when you shut it down and when booting up it will try to finish the process. This will fail, so it will revert the changes and shut down again. You will have to boot it up. After you spend a few minutes on your Windows online, it will see "oh, there is a patch I have not installed yet" and force the update again. The other solution is to set Windows boot manager as main only when it needs to update and then switch back to GRUB, but it's a lot of work.