Can Windows 7 tolerate changes in partition sizes?

[William Park]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:58:18AM -0500, Kevin Cozens wrote:
> Greetings, all.
> 
> My father has asked me about installing Linux on his computer. I'm not sure 
> what sparked the request but I'm happy to set it up to dual boot. His 
> computer is running Windows 7. I booted the machine using a live CD of 
> Ubuntu and verified that everything appeared to be working including the 
> printer and the WiFi adapter.
> 
> My concern is about whether the OEM version of Windows 7 that came with the 
> machine is going to complain about the change in partitions and/or 
> partition sizes and think it may not be an authentic install of the MS OS.
> 
> I am hoping it is ok but I read about issues with recent versions of 
> Windows and how some (a few?) system changes can lead to requiring the 
> purchase of a new copy of Windows as it will no longer accept its a valid 
> copy running on the same system.

Don't touch the harddisk.  OEM versions often creates partitions other
than for Windows.  Furthermore, if you do "factory install" in the
future for some reason, you'll lose Linux partition.  I would
    - install Linux on USB harddisk, and boot from it.  Of course, this
      depends on BIOS being able to boot from USB disk.
    - (as already mentioned) install VirtualBox on Windows, and install
      Linux inside VM.
-- 
William
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