Dual Boot Windows 7 with OpenSuse 11.1

[RevJack]

I'm thinking of dual booting Windows 7 with OpenSuse 11.1. Are there any issues/problems in doing so? I've heard that Linux does not recognize Windows 7 as an operating system, but as a file and therefore doesn't see the Windows 7 partition.

[john_hudson]

Don't believe everything you hear! It is worth trying a default install. At some point you will be presented with the full schema; if that includes a mount point for Windows 7 and the size allocated to the Windows 7 partitions looks OK, go ahead. If not, abort.

Some Vista users, but not all, found that asking Vista to create some free space first worked better. Given the way Windows scatters files all over the place after it has installed something, that might be worth doing anyway.

[srschifano]

Most versions of Linux see Windows partitions perfectly fine; I don't know what you mean by Linux not seeing Windows 7 as an operating system... Linux doesn't detect any Windows operating systems, it just sees the Windows partition, and mounts it accordingly.

If you are dual-booting Windows 7 and Linux, install Windows 7 first, but make sure you don't use up all of the disk for the Windows partition. Leave a sizable portion of the disk alone, and after the Windows install, install openSUSE.

Windows 7 creates a separate boot partition by default, so openSUSE will detect two windows partitons, typically windows 1 and windows 2. When you are configuring the grub bootloader, make sure the entry for Windows is pointing at the Windows boot partition; pointing it at the main Windows partition will result in Windows failing to boot.

Other than that, it should work fine.

[RevJack]

Ok, thanks!