Installing Windows afterFedora

[Bill Davidsen]

Aldo Foot wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com> wrote:
>> I have managed to go for just under a decade without a Windows machine, but
>> now I need to have such, and I'd like to add it to an existing machine with
>> a large enough partition which was used as work area for a project since
>> shipped. The problem is that while I've put Fedora (and Linux back to SLS
>> and Slackware on 2.2 kernels) on Windows machines, I haven't done it with
>> anything else after, Linux has always been "the last OS you'll ever need"
>> for dual boot.
>>
>> I'm not worried about the grub.conf, but the boot sector could be an issue,
>> I have seen reports that XP with patches and Win7 check the boot sector now
>> (XP at patch level 3). other than having to rewrite the boot sector, is that
>> going to be an issue? Any other things I should know?
>>
>> --
>> Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
> ____
> 
> I used to have the same concerns.
> The only problem is that Windows must be installed first.

That's not happening here, I'll be adding Windows to an existing system.

> I had WinXP installed in a PC, then installed F11. Clean setup. Later
> decided to wipe the F11
> and used the WinXP "Repair" feature to rewrite the Windows MBR and the
> system would
> go back to Windows only.  Once Win MBR was intalled and if I decided
> not to erase
> the F11 setup, then I'd reinstall GRUB to be back to dual boot.
> 
You can change the boot with Win MBR by diddling the active/boot bit with fdisk 
(or could), but grub is cleaner. There's a Win boot manager, I haven't used it, 
and I think the M/B has a boot manager in the BIOS, which might be my way out if 
things go badly. ;-)

Thanks for the thought.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot