[dba-Tech] g a dual boot laptop

[Jim Lawrence]

Hi All:

I have come to realize that my knowledge of Windows 10, is lacking. 

In front of me is a Dell XPS-2 with a 13inch touch screen. It has a 512SSD, 32GB RAM, I7 intel CPU, with amateur Windows 10 version (Home edition). As I know little or nothing this OS, I have been plugging away to install enough features to make this OS useful.

I have installed Ubuntu WSL, SSH server/client, Remote (RDP) which doesn't come with the home version apparently. I am also trying to get X2Go server installed but really only the client is needed. There is a bunch of other software packages that will need to be installed but that is a start.

My main problem is reducing the amount of SSD space used by Windows down to about 200GB. The BIOS tricks I wouldn't go into as they are hardware specific. If there is anything that anyone can suggest I will be more than appreciative.

1. Downloaded WINRETOOL and I understand I can backup the entire system to a USB stick. What all does the Windows 10 backup tool backup? Does it backup all the current installed applications as well? I would really hate to have to go through numerous updating sequences again as it took many hours. 

2. Use a Disk management application, booted from another USB stick which will format the drive into the appropriate partitions. In the past I have just used Windows Disk Management tool to create a partition of unused drive space and then rebooted the computer to install my Linux OS in the unallocated space but for some reason it is not recognized that new partition...it may be something with the current UEFI settings but I am not sure. (What is the Windows EFI system partition?)

3. Then re-install the backedup Windows OS on one new partition, using the backup USB stick and then install Linux on the other partition.

In theory it should all work but I have never done this before and it seems I have little time to investigate properly. If anyone has experience or comment to add please do so.

MTIA
Jim