Install Windows from Linux?

Taylor DeGree

New Member
Hello all. This is my first time posting and I'll pre warn you that I'm not computer savvy. I have an older Dell Inspiron Laptop that used to have Windows but someone installed Linux on it. I'd like to switch back to Windows. How would I go about doing this. Can I buy Windows 10 online and just install it on the computer with general step by step and be done or is there more to it? Thank you for any help on this.
:eek: Taylor
 

Agent Smith

Well-Known Member
Welp, I'm not a Windows 10 fan, so there's that. But you probably could install Win 10 on it.

All you do is boot from the OS disk. It will then load a bunch of things, reboot and ask if you want to boot from CD again, don't. Just let it boot this time.

To boot from CD in a Dell, while the computer boots you can either keep hitting the F12 key and then select boot from CD. Or you can go into BIOS its self by hitting the F2 key constantly on boot, go into the boot options section and set the CD drive as the first boot device.

The concept here is that you are in fact "booting" from the CD and not your hard drive.
 

_Pete_

Active Member
You say this is an "older Dell Inspiron laptop that someone installed Linux on." the reason that Linux was installed, possibly, was because the laptop had got so slow with whatever version of Windows it had on it the time. I would suggest that it, probably, wouldn't cope too well with Windows 10. Windows 10 is available to buy but it is expensive and to put it on to a laptop that, probably, couldn't run it could be an expensive mistake.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
What are the specs of this laptop? What processor does it have and how much ram does it have?
 

UnholyVision

Active Member
Hello all. This is my first time posting and I'll pre warn you that I'm not computer savvy. I have an older Dell Inspiron Laptop that used to have Windows but someone installed Linux on it. I'd like to switch back to Windows. How would I go about doing this. Can I buy Windows 10 online and just install it on the computer with general step by step and be done or is there more to it? Thank you for any help on this.
:eek: Taylor
My suggestion is to free up some space on your current HDD/SSD by resizing a partition with something like gnome-disk-utility or gparted. Then use Etcher to make a USB install media to create a dual boot. This way is Windows is slower as other stated or just not to your liking your not stuck doing the reverse with Windows to Linux. (Considering you said you're not tech savvy I'm willing to help step by step for each area).

What distro of Linux is the machine running? Depending on the distro Etcher may be in the package-manager. If you purchase Windows disc to rip to an ISO or a ISO with key directly from Microsoft Etcher makes flashing a USB Key easy. It auto detects any USB stick and allows you to easily drag and drop ISO's.
 
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Taylor DeGree

New Member
Thank you. The laptop from what I can see has a Intel Core i5 processor M 430 @2.27 GHz Memory 3841 MB running Linux 4.2.0-34generic.
 

UnholyVision

Active Member
It is Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS
This will give you the ability to install Etcher on Ubuntu.
Code:
echo "deb https://deb.etcher.io stable etcher" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/etcher.list

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 379CE192D401AB61

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install etcher-electron
(Ubuntu makes me want yaourt -S etcher-bin in all distros :D Anyway..)
You will need an ISO for Windows 10 be it 32bit or 64 bit (64bit being ideal) and if you want to keep this long term you will need to purchase a license key through Microsoft's Website or I believe the Windows Store.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

Once you have a ISO you will need to have a USB Tumb Drive ready. Preferably no less than 5GB. As 64bit is 4.4GB for the ISO.
___
Run Etcher and just drag the ISO onto the first section of Etcher or browse to the location where you saved the ISO. It should automatically find the USB Key so all you'll need to do is press the button that says, "Flash". Let it go through its cycle and verify the flash. Now you should have a working USB Stick with Windows 10.

If you're wanting to dual boot we will need a second USB Flash Drive. Also we need to know what your disk drive(s) have in capacity. If you could type in a terminal. "df -h" and post it here or open gnome-disk (which should be named "Disks" in your gnome app menu) and take a screenshot of that we could figure out how we can resize things if possible.

It's probably ubuntu or some other debian base.
Well you never know. Someone else installed it and their preferences might have shined through. That and I mean there is Peppermint or Puppy Linux that is quiet popular for older machines. Which have none Debian versions. I believe Puppy Linux has Slackware versions even.
 
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Cromewell

Administrator
Staff member
Well you never know. Someone else installed it and their preferences might have shined through.
Yeah, it was possible. But going with the odds pays off a lot :D

It's somewhat annoying to me that you can't straight dd the iso to USB anymore. I've read people are still able to use dd, but need to fiddle with partitions and boot flags first, then manually write an MBR record to the usb. Sounds like a pain. It's probably what the tool is doing, but in one click vs a bunch of commands.
 

UnholyVision

Active Member
Yeah, it was possible. But going with the odds pays off a lot :D

It's somewhat annoying to me that you can't straight dd the iso to USB anymore. I've read people are still able to use dd, but need to fiddle with partitions and boot flags first, then manually write an MBR record to the usb. Sounds like a pain. It's probably what the tool is doing, but in one click vs a bunch of commands.
I just don't want to go and say tons of commands then the individual gets mad and blames GNU/Linux. I would rather not make assumptions to make an @## out of myself. :p Also, I have to admit I have installed Arch and variants of Arch on others machines just to make my life easier. When those calls for help come in it makes things so much faster. No crappy PPA's or anything, just a quick yaourt -S package-name if not in pacman. (AUR is a godsend per se).

I believe you can, but what would I know about ISO's with dd anymore. These days the only use dd gets is for clearing out a drive to nothingness. I have switched over to using tools for everything of that nature. Because I'm usually using my keyboard most of the time anyway so more xbindkeys is nothing. I'm always running i3, Openbox, or bspwm on most all my computers. I tend to stick with WM's, but I do have one machine that uses "theshell" and xfce4 as backup considering theshell is still quiet buggy in its beta'ish state.
 
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