Question Want to dual boot for gaming and DAW - is my plan sound?

[vlad-kzm]

The reason I want to dual boot 2 copies of Windows 11 is to separate my gaming PC and my music making DAW.
To me the DAW stuff is serious business with lots of licences and the gaming stuff is more to relax and mess around. Both have lots of background processes and launchers that I would rather have separated.
Sometimes for games I like to install mods and customisations for fun and it doesn't feel right mixing it with stuff that's serious to me. And if something goes wrong with drivers or something, reinstalling the gaming stuff is a breeze, but reinstalling the audio stuff is a real pain in the ass because how much of it there is, deactivating and re-activating every license all over again.

But today I tried and it wasn't exactly what I expected. I see the 2 OSs still see and can access each others drives. Both are NVME drives which are plugged to the motherboard so I can't swap them in and out.

So I don't know. Is there a way to make them more independent? Do you think it's worth it at all? Or am I just wasting my time?

Ideally I'd buy a Mac for the audio stuff and keep the Windows PC for gaming, but that's not realistic for me right now. What would you do in this case?

 

[lantis3]

Ventoy

Prepare a fast USB drive, either SSD or NVMe put in a enclosure.

download ventoy 1.0.99 zip file, extract it and run the utility to format the usb drive. After that, format the Ventoy partition (default is exFAT) to NTFS, create a /ventory folder.

follow the instruction very carefully
https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vhdboot.html

Releases · ventoy/vhdiso

VHD boot template. Contribute to ventoy/vhdiso development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

copy the windows 10 based .img file to /ventoy folder.

Create a Windows 11 virtual machine using VirtualBox. Must use VHD disk format.

You can either create the VM on local disk or external USB drive. If on local disk, after the installation, copy the VHD file to the ventoy USB drive.

When you boot you will have to choose the VM VHD image file to boot. It will re-detect the hardware and you install the drivers accordingly.

According to Ventoy, you can put the VHD file on a local disk, but I haven't tried it.

See if the video helps. Though it's from Linux perspective

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBi5bUs9GfI

 

[lantis3]

Another option is use Rufus to install a Windows 11 To Go installation and prevent it from accessing internal drive, should be much easier.

 

[vlad-kzm]

Thank you for the info. You know what, I think I'm just gonna stick with the dual boot and hopefully it won't do anything weird like corrupting the other install for no reason.
It's cool that these options are here but it seems like they all have some disadvantages to them.

 

[lantis3]

Another way is to create different users and set local disk access policy

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/a...ict-users-to-store-data-in-local-drive-deskto

 

[Endre]

The reason I want to dual boot 2 copies of Windows 11 is to separate my gaming PC and my music making DAW.
To me the DAW stuff is serious business with lots of licences and the gaming stuff is more to relax and mess around. Both have lots of background processes and launchers that I would rather have separated.
Sometimes for games I like to install mods and customisations for fun and it doesn't feel right mixing it with stuff that's serious to me. And if something goes wrong with drivers or something, reinstalling the gaming stuff is a breeze, but reinstalling the audio stuff is a real pain in the ass because how much of it there is, deactivating and re-activating every license all over again.

But today I tried and it wasn't exactly what I expected. I see the 2 OSs still see and can access each others drives. Both are NVME drives which are plugged to the motherboard so I can't swap them in and out.

So I don't know. Is there a way to make them more independent? Do you think it's worth it at all? Or am I just wasting my time?

Ideally I'd buy a Mac for the audio stuff and keep the Windows PC for gaming, but that's not realistic for me right now. What would you do in this case?

Hello!

My use case is very similar to yours.
(I am using FL Studio & Reason as DAWs, paired with a bunch of VSTs & plug-ins. And I also like shooter games).

To give an answer to your question:
Yes, you are wasting your time by dual booting.

Just make sure that all of the software that you're running is legit (not cracked).
That's all.

I hope this helps...

 

[vlad-kzm]

Hello!

My use case is very similar to yours.
(I am using FL Studio & Reason as DAWs, paired with a bunch of VSTs & plug-ins. And I also like shooter games).

To give an answer to your question:
Yes, you are wasting your time by dual booting.

Just make sure that all of the software that you're running is legit (not cracked).
That's all.

I hope this helps...

All my stuff is legit too. It doesn't bother you to have iLok, Waves and Native Instruments running at the same time as gaming stuff? Or something like a custom animated wallpaper with sound while also wanting to use Cubase? It's almost like asking for compatibility trouble...

 

[USAFRet]

It doesn't bother you to have iLok, Waves and Native Instruments running at the same time as gaming stuff?

Why do you have all that stuff running, if you're not using it at the moment?

 

[vlad-kzm]

Why do you have all that stuff running, if you're not using it at the moment?

It runs in the background. Native Instruments is drivers and licenses for example, iLok is a license manager, Waves another license manager. If you kill any of those processes you can surely expect trouble using your plugins later.

That's why I think it's reasonable to want 2 separate systems.

 

[SkyNetRising]

But today I tried and it wasn't exactly what I expected. I see the 2 OSs still see and can access each others drives. Both are NVME drives which are plugged to the motherboard so I can't swap them in and out.

So I don't know. Is there a way to make them more independent? Do you think it's worth it at all? Or am I just wasting my time?

I think, it's perfectly fine to do that.
You can remove drive letter for drive, where other OS is installed and it becomes unavailable.
Can't mess anything in other OS drive, if it has no drive letter assigned.

 

[vlad-kzm]

I think, it's perfectly fine to do that.
You can remove drive letter for drive, where other OS is installed and it becomes unavailable.
Can't mess anything in other OS drive, if it has no drive letter assigned.

So from each OS I un-assign the drive letter from the disk manager and they will stop seeing each other?

 

[Endre]

All my stuff is legit too. It doesn't bother you to have iLok, Waves and Native Instruments running at the same time as gaming stuff? Or something like a custom animated wallpaper with sound while also wanting to use Cubase? It's almost like asking for compatibility trouble...

I, personally, turn off everything else (even the internet connection) when producing music.
Also, my iLok licenses are set directly on the PC, not in the cloud.
I am not using animated desktop wallpapers.

 

[vlad-kzm]

I, personally, turn off everything else (even the internet connection) when producing music.
Also, my iLok licenses are set directly on the PC, not in the cloud.
I am not using animated desktop wallpapers.

I've been doing it like you (except I don't turn off my internet) all this time until now, I'm gonna try dual booting and see if I like it better like this. Turning off the internet...I don't know, every launcher and license manager relies on online activation and updates now so I don't know if that's a good idea.

 

[Endre]

I've been doing it like you (except I don't turn off my internet) all this time until now, I'm gonna try dual booting and see if I like it better like this. Turning off the internet...I don't know, every launcher and license manager relies on online activation and updates now so I don't know if that's a good idea.

Like I've already said, I have set the licenses to be activated on my PC, locally. Which means that after activating a product, it won't bother me again trying to connect to the internet (except at very long intervales of time).
I am searching for updates manually.
I've been using my PC like this for decades, without issues.

Even when talking about Windows 11, I have chosen the option to pause updates for 5 weeks, so it won't bother me when I am doing something, then, when I'm not busy, I am updating Windows periodically.