Dual Boot - What are the limits of possibility?

[AndyCalling]

I'm not used to a dual booting system, but since W10 is looming and since I need a proper touch environment on all my devices, I need to plan ahead and consider my options.

I am thinking about Hyper-V but I am concerned that games will not impress under that system. But I will need to seamlessly and swiftly switch between apps whatever system they require. So, considering dual boot...

Being new to dual, this might seem a silly question to the experts but I wonder if it is possible to add a second vid card to my system, allocate 4 of my CPU cores to W10 and 4 to W8, put W10 on its own internal HDD and boot both OSs at once. One on each monitor?

The only alternative (if I can't game with Hyper-V well) would be to use both dual boot and Hyper-V. Could I launch a traditional W10 dual booting partition under Hyper-V rather than directly booting from it if I want? I'd rather not have two W10 installations and a W8 installation on each PC just to make this work (expense + wasted storage + complex to manage).

I'm hoping not to have to abandon the idea of W10 completely, so just how flexible can I be with two OSs?

 

[stephen_az]

Perhaps you might want to explain your logic for dual booting at all? Nothing you described requires dual booting - Window 10 would handle it all. If it is because the beta lacks features keep in mind it is a beta. As for the Hyper-V option, no that would not be good for a resource intensive setup. Maybe that has changed in the past year but it certainly was hamstrung in the past. First and foremost though, I just don't get the rationale of needing to have both 8 and 10 due to a need for a proper touch environment.

BTW, anyone choosing to dual boot should keep in mind that if you need to load any of the same software in the different boot setups, quite a bit of the popular subscription/activation based programs will view each setup as its own activation. There is also absolutely nothing seamless about a dual boot setup. Other than a virtual OS, which has performance limitations, whatever you have in one boot requires you to restart to access. It is about as seamed as one can possibly get....

 

[astondg]

As above, Windows 10 in its final form should combine all the touch friendliness of W8.1 with a consistent experience transitioning from W7. The early preview builds were less about touch but the latest ones have made significant improvements and that trend should continue until release.

If you still want to dual boot then you could look into using a VHD, that way you could boot directly into the OS when performing resource intensive work OR load that same VHD in Hyper-V and have both OSes running 'side by side'.

 

[AndyCalling]

It is possible that W10 will be suitable on its own, but it has a long way to go. I remain to be convinced. I have discussed my red line requirements elsewhere and they are the familiar set. The current builds are very far from having the full Win8 immersive arrangement so going native has to be plan B right now.

VHD, huh? That seems to mean I can boot a single W10 install either directly as a primary OS or 'launch' it from Win8 as a Hyper-V VM? Sounds like an option. But why can't I simply give the W10 install its own physical HDD? How does using a virtual drive help?

 

[astondg]

But why can't I simply give the W10 install its own physical HDD? How does using a virtual drive help?

Because Hyper-V can boot a VHD, I don't think it can boot an OS from a physical HDD. But it's worth looking in to further.

I do know that many, virtualized, Windows Server instances can run on one machine at once so maybe you could do exactly what you're after anyway and have both instances running simultaneously with a video card each. We need a server admin to weigh in.

 

[AndyCalling]

Hmm, ok, so VHD certainly seems like a plan then. And pretty easy to do as well. If a server admin can describe a better way then I'm all ears. This is a topic that will become more and more interesting to people as W10 day gets closer I'm sure, so any input will be appreciated.