Question Oh, well, question and beyond

[Themolebowl900]

I will start with…why does Microsoft make everything so infuriatingly hard to do? okay got that off my chest. I bought a new Dell xps 9860 pre installed with windows 11. After incredible wrangling just to get my video working I have moved on to getting widows 10 as my preferred OS. I can not use windows 11 for my needs as it would require me spending over $10,000 for new software. Don’t ask, just trust me. So I created a new partition on the drive that has windows 11 and named It windows 10. I next cloned my entire windows 10 drive onto that new partition. If I had to reinstall 10 it would take a month or two to reinstall my programs..don’t ask. It all about digital audio work stations. Sooooo, I went into the bios and there, of course is no boot order option., oh except the new EUFI windows 11 . How in the good grapes of god do I get set my windows ten partition as the boot partition? Pleas oh please enlighten me. I am now going to go get some wine and say many bad words with the name Microsoft attached to them. Thank you

 

[USAFRet]

I can not use windows 11 for my needs as it would require me spending over $10,000 for new software. Don’t ask, just trust me.

Sorry, but I *am* going to ask.

What would prevent your validly purchased and licensed software from being installed in a Win 11 system?

 

[Themolebowl900]

All of my DAW software is purchased. It simply is not supported in Windows 11. It is old software but important to my needs. To purchase all new software would be extremely expensive and many of the plugins that I use cannot be replaced. Some were written by individuals years ago. I not only would need to spend over 10k to get what I need, I would not be able to reproduce previous projects. That is why I always keep a legacy computer with the older OS. Unfortunately my studio computer has failing capacitors and I had to buy a new one. And the only option in a Dell XPS is Windows 11 and the EUFI bios from Megatrends. I have the Windows 11 on the SSD it came with. I resized the partition and added a partition with Windows 10 which I wish to boot from. I could put the Windows 10 on a separate SSD drive but am not sure that would solve the problem. When I open the bios it only sees the EUFI boot partition. I have read that I may need to turn off the CSM module or the TSM module but neither option I can find in the bios. Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

I could put the Windows 10 on a separate SSD drive

Yes.
Try that first.

 

[USAFRet]

That is why I always keep a legacy computer with the older OS.

What will you do in Oct 2025?

 

[Themolebowl900]

What will you do in Oct 2025?

It will as all previous windows versions remain un supported. It is an offline system. Imagine it like a tape recorder. It is a tool for recoding music in a studio. Even downloads are transferred to it rather than it be online. And I do what steps I can to keep it from asking to update. A minor annoyance. I will add an SSD and try it as you suggest first. Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

It will as all previous windows versions remain un supported. It is an offline system. Imagine it like a tape recorder. It is a tool for recoding music in a studio. Even downloads are transferred to it rather than it be online. And I do what steps I can to keep it from asking to update. A minor annoyance. I will add an SSD and try it as you suggest first. Thanks

OK then.


Have you actually tried your DAW applications in Win11?

 

[Corwin65]

Can you let us know the specific DAW and version?

 

[Themolebowl900]

cubase5. not supported

 

[USAFRet]

cubase5. not supported

"not supported" does not automatically mean "does not run".

Have you actually tried it?

 

[lantis3]

Try to run the program in compatibility mode (Win8, 7 or Vista)

---

Win11 is basically Win10 with a face-lift

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ndows-10/9bb8b03b-5a72-4b74-9744-a58dd2968a47

 

[NedSmelly]

I have this exact problem, but with photography related hardware and driver support (really old scanners). I’ve found the best solution is to grab a couple of old legacy laptops with good aftermarket parts support, such as Lenovo Thinkpads, and run the old OS versions offline.

Just make sure you deactivate the software before moving to a different PC, if needed (I don’t know about Cubase).

Edit: and to the other posters, go easy on the OP. Proprietary music production software and audio hardware are amongst the worst with regards to OS compatibilities and support. Even with official support they can still be full of compatibility gremlins. I doubt that even a virtual machine running Win10 would work, given latency and resource sharing quirks.

OP I would contact Dell and ask for guidance on a supported downgrade to Win10, given your application requirements and that it’s a new system.

 

[USAFRet]

And going back to the beginning...

I will start with…why does Microsoft make everything so infuriatingly hard to do? okay got that off my chest. I bought a new Dell xps 9860 pre installed with windows 11. After incredible wrangling just to get my video working I have moved on to getting widows 10 as my preferred OS. I can not use windows 11 for my needs as it would require me spending over $10,000 for new software. Don’t ask, just trust me. So I created a new partition on the drive that has windows 11 and named It windows 10. I next cloned my entire windows 10 drive onto that new partition. If I had to reinstall 10 it would take a month or two to reinstall my programs..don’t ask. It all about digital audio work stations. Sooooo, I went into the bios and there, of course is no boot order option., oh except the new EUFI windows 11 . How in the good grapes of god do I get set my windows ten partition as the boot partition? Pleas oh please enlighten me. I am now going to go get some wine and say many bad words with the name Microsoft attached to them. Thank you

Win 10 on this new Dell system will require a full OS install.
Unlikely you can simply clone your old drive to a new drive or partition in this Dell, and have it "just work".

So, your OS and everything else will need to be reinstalled anyway.

 

[Themolebowl900]

I tried putting the original windows 10 SSD drive from my old computer on the new system and see if it would see 10 Oscas well as the the 11 OS instead of from the partition on the drive That came with windows 11. No luck. So cloning an OS with cloning software or just attaching the original drive is about as useful as a comb for a bald guy. When I go into the bios it says Boot mode is set to UEFI Secure boot on. ( translation, you are only going to boot to windows 11 sucker) no options to change that. If I go into the UFEI options menu it gives the same options as it did on the main menu, windows UFEI boot manager or onboard NIC IVP4 PXE or NIC IVP6 PXE. I have no idea what the those options are. But basically it Donna gonna see windows ten on any drive. Thanks Microsuck. So, yes I will try a complete New windows 10 install and try to survive the hell of reinstalling all my software. If it works. I have doubts but we will see. Fortunately I have plenty of wine for the weeks of hell coming. Between online down loads and re authorizing, old cd‘s and the slew of drives with programs I should be able to drink a case. Thank for all your help.

 

[USAFRet]

I tried putting the original windows 10 SSD drive from my old computer on the new system and see if it would see 10 Oscas well as the the 11 OS instead of from the partition on the drive That came with windows 11. No luck. So cloning an OS with cloning software or just attaching the original drive is about as useful as a comb for a bald guy. When I go into the bios it says Boot mode is set to UEFI Secure boot on. ( translation, you are only going to boot to windows 11 sucker) no options to change that. If I go into the UFEI options menu it gives the same options as it did on the main menu, windows UFEI boot manager or onboard NIC IVP4 PXE or NIC IVP6 PXE. I have no idea what the those options are. But basically it Donna gonna see windows ten on any drive. Thanks Microsuck. So, yes I will try a complete New windows 10 install and try to survive the hell of reinstalling all my software. If it works. I have doubts but we will see. Fortunately I have plenty of wine for the weeks of hell coming. Between online down loads and re authorizing, old cd‘s and the slew of drives with programs I should be able to drink a case. Thank for all your help.

A Windows install is NOT modular or portable. Not meant to be moved between different systems.
Either the physical drive, or a clone of it.

It has always been thus.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Have you actually attempted to run the software in 11? I’d guess it likely works. I think compatibility mode is still there as well so try that. But you might consider setting up a virtual machine as well.

 

[lantis3]

Searched Youtube and found the following. Apparently you can still install and run it.

As mentioned above, unsupported software doesn't mean it won't run. It just mean the software vendor doesn't want to put any effort to support old software and customers if there is any issue. They just want you to purchase new version of the software.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxcci7V0n3U

 

[Themolebowl900]

I tried putting the original windows 10 SSD drive from my old computer on the new system and see if it would see 10 Oscas well as the the 11 OS instead of from the partition on the drive That came with windows 11. No luck. So cloning an OS with cloning software or just attaching the original drive is about as useful as a comb for a bald guy. When I go into the bios it says Boot mode is set to UEFI Secure boot on. ( translation, you are only going to boot to windows 11 sucker) no options to change that. If I go into the UFEI options menu it gives the same options as it did on the main menu, windows UFEI boot manager or onboard NIC IVP4 PXE or NIC IVP6 PXE. I have no idea what the those options are. But basically it Donna gonna see windows ten on any drive. Thanks Microsuck. So, yes I will try a complete New windows 10 install and try to survive the hell of reinstalling all my software. If it works. I have doubts but we will see. Fortunately I have plenty of wine for the weeks of hell coming. Between online down loads and re authorizing, old cd‘s and the slew of drives with programs I should be able to drink a case. Thank for all your help.

A Windows install is NOT modular or portable. Not meant to be moved between different systems.
Either the physical drive, or a clone of it.

It has always been thus.

This of course makes sense and doesn't. I can not understand why companies make software to clone you entire os and programs to another drive if it is not possible. I bought backupper which clones drives, partitions, programs you name It. I guess it is only useful if you want to put a clone back on a previous installation. And even that does not totally make sense. I mean they advertise you can move everything from an old SSD to a new one?????

 

[USAFRet]

This of course makes sense and doesn't. I can not understand why companies make software to clone you entire os and programs to another drive if it is not possible. I bought backupper which clones drives, partitions, programs you name It. I guess it is only useful if you want to put a clone back on a previous installation. And even that does not totally make sense. I mean they advertise you can move everything from an old SSD to a new one?????

Cloning works very well, within the same system.

For instance, changing from an HDD to SSD.
Or to a larger SSD.

It does NOT work well moving between systems.

 

[NedSmelly]

This of course makes sense and doesn't. I can not understand why companies make software to clone you entire os and programs to another drive if it is not possible. I bought backupper which clones drives, partitions, programs you name It. I guess it is only useful if you want to put a clone back on a previous installation. And even that does not totally make sense. I mean they advertise you can move everything from an old SSD to a new one?????

These generally refer to cloning a drive to use in the same machine, as in upgrading an SSD.

But transplanting an old drive into another system generally won’t work for multiple reasons - different drivers, different boot system, different activation codes, and much more. @USAFRet is correct. Microsoft and others aren’t being malicious, it’s just how it is.

I’d carefully read the uninstall instructions for Cubase from Steinberg to check if you need to deactivate, before reinstalling on a new machine.

 

[lantis3]

Most disk cloning software will not copy boot sector/partition table unless you clone the whole disk.

OP needs to know disk layout starts from DOS/Win3.x, the booting process (regarding a tiny boot sector in the front of the disk) and partitioning is extremely complex, it's been at least 35 years and Microsoft has to maintain compatibility from DOS, Windows 3.0/3.1, Win9x, WinNT, Win2000, XP, Vista, 7,8, 10 and 11. BIOS/CSM->UEFI, booting code starts from 16bit->32bit->64bit and from 5.25" 20MB disk to 20TB disk, It's basically mission impossible.

See if free EasyBCD (2.3) can help finding the partitions. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=easybcd+dual+boot

Yet Apple will just ignore you for compatibility.

 

[Corwin65]

As a music producer as well I can understand your pain.

That said, if it's just a hobby, it can be an expensive and frustrating hobby keeping up with updates and updating or finding new VST's.

If you are a professional musician, then you have to factor this into the "cost of doing business".

If I sound like I'm being a (insert expletive here), I apologize as I'm not trying to be one.

Like I said I get your frustration but just realize we are lucky that we get to create from our mind, something that brings us and/or others joy or whatever emotion you are conveying.

 

[Themolebowl900]

Most disk cloning software will not copy boot sector/partition table unless you clone the whole disk.

OP needs to know disk layout starts from DOS/Win3.x, the booting process (regarding a tiny boot sector in the front of the disk) and partitioning is extremely complex, it's been at least 35 years and Microsoft has to maintain compatibility from DOS, Windows 3.0/3.1, Win9x, WinNT, Win2000, XP, Vista, 7,8, 10 and 11. BIOS/CSM->UEFI, booting code starts from 16bit->32bit->64bit and from 5.25" 20MB disk to 20TB disk, It's basically mission impossible.

See if free EasyBCD (2.3) can help finding the partitions. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=easybcd+dual+boot

Yet Apple will just ignore you for compatibility.

yes understood. AOMEI Backupper cloned the entire boot drive. thanks will check out easy BCD

 

[Themolebowl900]

yes understood. AOMEI Backupper cloned the entire boot drive. thanks will check out easy BCD

Easy BCD states that "Due to limitations set by Microsoft, many of Easy BCD's multi-booting features cannot be used in EUFI mode and have been disabled. " but it does say there may be work around. unfortunately Easy BCD did not detect the UEFI bios so I can not view the possible work arounds.

 

[Themolebowl900]

Easy BCD states that "Due to limitations set by Microsoft, many of Easy BCD's multi-booting features cannot be used in EUFI mode and have been disabled. " but it does say there may be work around. unfortunately Easy BCD did not detect the UEFI bios so I can not view the possible work arounds.

If your Windows PC is booting in EFI mode, Microsoft has blocked the loading of legacy or non-Windows operating systems from the BCD menu. This means that you can no longer use EasyBCD to add Windows 9x, XP, or Server 2003 entries to the BCD bootloader menu. You also cannot add DOS, Linux, BSD, or Mac entries. You can add multiple Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 entries; and you can also boot into BCD-based portable media, such as WinPE 2.0+ images.

EasyBCD is 100% UEFI-ready. In UEFI mode, much of EasyBCD’s functionality will be disabled for the safety of your PC. It abides by the restrictions Microsoft has placed on the bootloader that will block any attempts to load non-Microsoft-signed kernels (including chainloaders) from the top-level BCD menu, and it will create 100%-compliant UEFI entries other installed Windows operating systems on your PC. These limitations are not short comings of EasyBCD nor can they be lightly bypassed, they have been put in place by Microsoft.