There is a game I am considering getting; it has been out for a few months now, and the devs are specifically blocking it from running under proton with a Kernel Level Anticheat which specifically blocks linux.
Folks on the discussion boards made the point tht it is technically possible to install windows for just one steam game, so I am looking for a guide on how to do that?
I’ve heard that if you don’t activate windows, you can still use it, and if you get the LSTC (?) Version of windows, it is not so annoying.
Does anyone have a guide for how to install windows alongside linux for one game?
If we have a discussion in the comments about whether it is tactically appropriate to give money to a game corporation that requires windows, i guess we can, but i would rather learn how to install windows in the least annoying way possible.
I am not an expert on Windows game rootkits (or Windows in general…), but would it perhaps run in a VM?
At least then you wouldn’t have to do a “real” install…Nah, that used to be a solution a few years back if you had the patience to setup GPU-passthrough with a single or two GPUs. But these anticheat rootkits now detect a running VM and deny you service either way.
Dualbooting Windows 10 LTSC with massgrave activation seems to be the best option for now if you really nee…want a Windows installation with GPU acceleration. For Nongaming/Rendering tasks: Winboat.
I played Forza Horizon 6 pirated like this. It isn’t an easy solution, but it worked for that one. I’m not saying it’ll work for anything else, but it does work for Denuvuwu.
I mean pirated FH6 works on Linux with Proton, too. So there isnt kernel level anti linux/cheat in place either way.
I used to dualboot for the same situation, just exam software instead of game. You can find entire video tutorials online for dualbooting.
Would you be willing to link one that you used?
LTSC is fine, and you can just use massgrave.dev to activate it.
Get the Windows 11 IoT LTSC specifically. IoT is better according to nassgrave, and Windows 11 so you get good compatibility with new games. Not much debloating is needed, just use WinUtil by CTT and tweak/disable shit.
I have a windows install on a USB hard-drive. It’s not fast but that might not be a problem if you use a fast USB storage. I just plug it in and boot from it via UEFI.
This is what I do, just a spare nvme drive thrown in an external enclosure. Rufus has an option called “windows to go” that installs the iso as opposed to making a bootable installer, and it gives an option to block Windows from overwriting local disks to avoid the boot loader issues too. Has worked quite well up until a point recently where it just refused to boot anymore with an unhelpful error despite not having been touched in months. No updates or changes since it worked before. Good ol windows…
I was installing Win10 Pro to a SSD that I would stick in an external case. Would work, for a while, but eventually would get an error and would be unable to boot, or repair it. Windows seems to be designed to know when it’s installed on an external drive, and to hose itself out of spite. I gave up after the fourth time, resigned to the fact I just had to find an alternative CAD software package that I could access from Linux.
Interesting. I suppose I’ll see if it happens again, luckily not too big a deal as Windows was more a convenience for a couple utilities I use, already found a Linux friendly way for one of them thanks to it borking itself recently. If they’re intentionally doing that and giving me an excuse to rid myself entirely of Windows, I guess I won’t complain too much ahaha. I just chalked it up to the usual Windows shenanigans
just a spare nvme drive thrown in an external enclosure
A spare NVME? In this economy?
Probably from the previous economy
Hah, I had written then deleted a part because the comment was already pretty long saying it almost has the same energy as “my spare yacht” at the moment. Reaaaally glad I had the foresight/luck with timing I did on keeping components around. Can’t wait for some bubbles to burst
If you must run Windows, do it on a completely separate device if you can. That way your one game that’s DRM-locked to Windows can stay on its own machine without Windows getting hostile to your Linux install like in a dual-boot.
If you don’t have/can’t obtain a separate device for installing Windows on and you must dual-boot, the safest way to do that is to disconnect your Linux drive(s), install Windows on its own fresh drive so it can have its own boot partition and its own bootloader, reconnect your Linux drive(s) after your Windows drive is finished setting up, and then set your Linux bootloader, usually GRUB, to query your Windows drive and let you pick it to boot from, that way hopefully Windows stays on its own drive and its own boot partition and doesn’t try to screw over your Linux drive and its boot partition.
What i half remember is that if the windows installer (or Linux installer for that matter) detects an EFI boot partition, it will write to it, regardless of what the software says it will do, which is why we have to do this.
But once windows is installed and grub uses the chainloader method to pass the boot to windows’s bootloader, does that mean that future windows updates will restrict their changes to the windows bootloader? Basically, what risks should I watch out for if Windows is on a drive in the same computer as linux?
I have tried to have separate computers share the same desk, speakers, keyboard, mouse, and dual monitors in the past, but it is not easy or cheap to do well :/
GRUB just queries it so you can pick it and boot from it, it should still be on its own drive if you do as I described with it, or at least it did last time I dual-booted, which was forever ago.
Also, dual booting is much easier when using Windows 10 with Linux than using Windows 11 with Linux.
If you purely want Windows to have minimum impact on your Linux system then avoid Windows 11.
You can do one of three, for different levels of ease and performance:
- Install boxes/gnome-boxes, install the windows os on a virtual machine. Just press the plus to choose an iso file and go.
- If you have an extra hard drive, you can install windows on that hard drive, and have to set up grub to recognise it.
- Change the partition size of your hd using a live cd/usb version of Linux (you can’t change partition size on partitions that are in use) , make a new partition and install windows on that partition. Add this new OS to grub.
You will need to do further research on some of the stuff I said, but I have you the correct things to look up.
They go down in order of difficulty. Boxes will be less efficient but easiest. The other two have the same efficiency, but the second is a bit more challenging
I wouldn’t suggest Boxes for gaming. Even if it could do a GPU passthrough, I don’t think current anticheat games, like what OP wants to run, play well with that.
If you want to install Windows on another drive and quite rightly don’t want to pay MS for the privilege, then massgrave is your friend.
Ugh, I feel you on this. Can’t help unfortunately because I just bit the bullet and dual boot, there’s just one or two games that don’t work well for me on Linux. Best of luck
Maybe what you want to hear, but I once bought Marathon because it wasn’t declared that GNU/Linux is blocked again, like Destiny 2 was. I requested a refund on Steam and 30 minutes later was granted. It’s not worth the hassle for one game, IMO.
Typical Linux users ignore ‘min. spec requirements -OS: WIndows **’. The hidden transaction fees you incur costs everyone else.
Lol I can’t even disagree.
I stopped bothering reading specs because my gaming pc (bazzite—yeah I know, I’m extremely lazy) just runs whatever I throw at it. I feel like you’d have to very aggressively develop a game exclusively for windows too manage to get it to not run on Linux these days.
Why you’d dev a game for office computers I’ll never know but we’re all different people making up a beautiful kaleidescope of humanity I guess.
All you have is anecdote.
Idgi, anecdote for what? Of what? You don’t want to be a part of the kaleidescope? Yeah? You’re a big grump?? You want a hug? 🥹 I’ll hug you, get over here grumpypants 🫱🏻🫱🏻
Look at their post history, you’re talking to an actual crazy person lol
I’ve got some pretty troubled people in my family, so I’m actually used to it. They’re part of the kaleidescope too ú_ù
Pretty sure this is the guy the anti Linux subreddits. He has mental health issues and is weird and obsessive.
Probably not related but the pro-ai crowd like copy’s this guys format or they work together or something because the ragebait they use is pretty much the style/patterns that target clueless children.
I encourage no one to engage with him, don’t ignore him just if you see his name downvote and move on.
I was waiting to see if it would be supported, and it turns out it could easily be supported, but the devs disallow linux support.
It sucks.
If you want to dual-boot Windows and Linux, I strongly recommend that you install them on separate devices, and physically disconnect your Linux device. It’s a pain in the ass, but Windows Update has a particular appetite for bootloaders and will eventually eat whatever you have on your EFI partition (including the Linux kernel and ramdisk) and replace it with its own.
Otherwise, you can use Chris Titus’ winutil script to delay or completely disable updates, and also to debloat the system and disable anti-features like telemetry and the start menu search.
Not sure if this applies to LTSC, but if you can, install a European edition of Windows (-N suffix) and set an EU location and timezone, it will allow you to more easily uninstall components because of EU regulations.
I can confirm you only need to physically disconnect the non-windows target drive during installation, and as long as you offline the remaining drives after connecting them, windows and other drives will be fine with updates (THIS is the most important part, do it in Disk Management on first boot into windows).
I’ve run two Windows instances for years, through multiple OS major updates and never had problems with this setup, before doing the offline drive change to each of them, they would both fuck over each other (I had one for work and one for personal).
One thing I did that may be necessary, is I didn’t let a boot loader handle the dual boot, I only used BIOS to manage changing the boot target when switching over - I was doing dual windows boots at the time so this may actually be fine with grub, so ymmv on that front.
I physically disconnected all drives to force the EFI partition on the actual Windows drive. It still shat all over boot settings after the first major update.
Someone recommended I try rEFInd and it’s been great. No update has forced me back into the UEFI to set boot order since.
Might be an ASUS MB thing, I never figured it out or bothered afterwards.
There are interfaces that allow a sufficiently privileged process to change EFI settings from the OS. Those settings are stored in the UEFI chipset, independent from the bootloader.
I really hope Windows doesn’t alter that. My Gigabyte motherboard forced me to boot into windows after a hios update, because the Linux bootloader was not registered…
Don’t even get me started on fucking Gigabyte. With all my heart,
FUCK GIGABYTE.
It is the single worst manufacturer I’ve ever had to deal with in both a personal and professional capacity. We’ve had to RMA half a classroom over the last two years because of busted motherboards. In separate incidents, two power supplies violently self-destructed and took the motherboards and CPUs with them. My own Gigabyte 2060 Super’s fans had to be replaced within two years because the bearings were crap.
Worse, even the motherboards that didn’t mercifully explode are a fucking chore because Gigabyte’s UEFI implementation is the worst on the fucking planet. No two versions work alike. Some options are in completely different menus. Sometimes CSM or SecureBoot are busted out of the box. If PXE is enabled (which we have to use frequently), it will ALWAYS put PXE at the start of the boot order. And if it can’t connect to a PXE server, it doesn’t fall back to the next boot option. It gracefully shits itself and sits on an error message until someone manually restarts it and interrupts the process.
Fuck Gigabyte.
I know it is probably not the same guy who put his whole show up on YouTube to watch for free during pandemic but it is goodwill nonetheless.
Agreeing with others that grub on separate device from windows then just register windows boot in grub and point bios to grub.
Windows, for all its fuckery, doesn’t screw with that of which it has no awareness.
As others has stated, what game is it? Depending on the answer you might not need to install Windows after all.
One of the handful of games where support is “borked” on protonDB because it uses kernel level anti-cheat and specifically disallows linux.
It’s starting to seem really strange that you’re being evasive. Not mentioning it in the OP, sure, it’s not the relevant part and you’re not obliged to share.
Writing long awkwardly worded sentences instead of answering a direct question of people trying to help you… several times?
Are you embarrassed by the game you’re trying to play?
Yes.
I don’t see how the game is relevant to the discussion.
It will have to be a mystery, although should be relatively easy to guess.
Why it matters is because there are different workarounds for different games. Some can run just fine in a VM. Others have wine tricks or proton tricks that you can use. Still others run dockerized on winboat.
Being evasive just means that people have to give you generalized solutions that may or may not work for your particular scenario. Help could exist for you, but you’ll never know.
Put the installer on a USB, remove your Linux drive (because you should install it on a separate drive, and Microsoft will infect your boot partition otherwise), and run it. That’s it.
Then follow the instructions on massgrave to activate it.
I’ve had Windows cause enough problems with wrecking my Linux boot partition to not want to try this again. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It works fine most of the time. But I’m not willing to risk that rare occasion when windows renders my Linux drive unbootable. Maybe there’s a way to fix the boot partition and I haven’t figured it out. But restoring my whole system is so annoying that I wouldn’t risk it.
So i would recommend that the best option is to consider just ignoring that game and playing the endless number of great games out there that run on Linux already.
I was recommended rEFInd and it’s worked wonders. Never had another boot issue since, and I did like you: physically disconnected all drives except the one I wanted Windows on. Still messed up my boot settings.
Recommend you give it a try if you dare go again.
Does the game run under Wine? That will let you avoid Proton, which is Steam specific. You can also configure network access for specific programs under Wine.
OP specifically says they’re using Kernel Level Anticheat, so it will never work
Also afaik proton can be used outside of steam, but I’m not an expert.
Yes, proton can absolutely be used outside of Steam, either manually via a proton prefix/whatever or via another launcher like Heroic which sets all that up for you
If you decide to go the dual-boot route with shared storage between windows and Linux, then I recommend using a btrfs partition. You’ll have to install WinBtrfs to use it on windows, but the experience is a filesystem that’s much better than ntfs on both windows and Linux.
I recently did this, using a VM with GPU passthrough. This meant my Linux OS couldn’t use the GPU while it was active. It’s a pain in the ass, but it technically works. I won’t describe how to do it, because there are good guides online.
Anti-cheat detects when its in a VM and blocks it.
I literally said I have experience with it working, so not always. It depends on the game, and OP didn’t specify.
Depends on the anti cheat. GTA V runs just fine on a vm with sunshine/moonlight using proxmox with GPU passthrough.
