Why bother with VM when you can dual boot ?

[davidhk129]

1. I always thought using a VM was the way to go when trying out a new operating system.
2. Until 4 days ago, I'd never used dual boot method.

Now that I had a few days of experience in dual booting system, I am questioning......
why use VM at all ?
If anything goes real wrong, all I have to do is go to the partition > right click > select Remove Volume.
And that's the end of the problem.

I did exactly that on one of my laptops. This one was dual booting Win 8.1 Pro with Win 10 TP.
I was experimenting how to go to Safe Mode, and I used this command line ....
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
It worked. But, when I tried to return to normal by using this command.....
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard
IT did not work. No matter Shutdown then restart or just simply Restart, it went right back to safe mode.
Then after several shutdowns and restarts, the computer started to run "repair" on my Win 10 E :drive. Did not solve anything.
Eventually, I just went back to my Win 8.1 Pro > disk management > right click partition E > Remove Volume > extend the volume back to C:
Back to normal without Win 10 TP.

Am I missing something ?

 

[Trouble]

Am I missing something ?

No not really. Except perhaps the whole boot into one OS and then the need to reboot in order to boot into the other OS.
Dual booting is probably the best test of the OS if you truly want to see how it actually performs in a real hardware based scenario.
While VM-ing might be a better choice if you want to just have a harmless look see and perhaps run both OS(s) side by side to do a real time comparison as to what's there and what's not.
Unfortunately, as good as it is, a VM masks that hardware so you'll never get a really true comparison.

 

[davehc]

Even better, David. As soon as you have installed, make an image. You can then totally destroy the beta whilst seeking out problems, and put it back in ten minutes.
Long time since I bothered with a VM, but I suspect it takes just as long to install on one, as to install in a dual boot.
My own technique is to have my default boot into the genuine OS. Get through my Email etc, and then boot into the Beta and play to my hearts content.

 

[clifford_cooley]

@Trouble is right, a VM doesn't use %100 percent of your machines hardware. Audio and video is both handicapped and don't play well with applications that use them. That is a major downfall and the only reason I don't use them. There is two reasons I would use a VM, Older OS's and Newer OS's. Others use VM's for a third reason, software testing. I'm not one for testing software, but I would love for the VM to be capable of using audio and video correctly. I have sentimental value in some software that I would like to get working correctly in a VM. As for testing new OS's, I find VM's fall short and doesn't give the full story. I've not tested all VM's, but from what I hear they all suffer from this handicap.

Even better, David. As soon as you have installed, make an image. You can then totally destroy the beta whilst seeking out problems, and put it back in ten minutes.

Replacing a damaged copy of a VM takes even less time. The only issues I've had with VM in this fashion is XP Mode because it is so integrated into Win7. The integration breaks when used in a fresh OS install and I have no idea how to fix the backup copy.

 

[Trouble]

Replacing a damaged copy of a VM takes even less time.

Yes it's relatively easy and fast especially if you're using the management software correctly.
I'm particularly fond of Hyper-V currently but have in the past actually paid for the commercial versions of VMware Workstation.
Most good VM software products have a means of creating snapshots (checkpoints) at any time for any reason and using them to recover a botched VM is very easy, fast and painless.
VMs really do suck when it comes to the hardware part of things but in my case where I often have questions regarding everything from XP 64bit, to Vista, 7, etc., etc. it's nice to be able to fire up a VM and refresh my old memory as to what I think I know. I've even been able to grab a critical .dll or other file from a VM, put it on a thumb drive and replace the corrupt version on a physical machine that was having problems. So they are handy and useful to have around.

 

[davidhk129]

Off topic......
why is it no one is replying to this thread of mine ? Don't you guys want to know too ?
https://www.windows10forums.com/threads/windows-10-tp-users.193/#post-638

 

[Trouble]

why is it no one is replying to this thread of mine ?

Not sure exactly what you want me or anyone else to say.... I've already explained to you in another thread that I indeed found the same thing as you are experiencing.

Don't you guys want to know too ?

And no, not really, I'm not sure how much early beta testing of Operating Systems you've done in the past, but it is not unusual at all for some things, to either not work at all, or not work properly if at all.
I believe that the System File Checker is finding a huge number of errors that are simply erroneous, why..... I don't know, maybe running it offline might have different results but I'm not going to bother.
Likewise, I have no reason to believe that the DISM utility is actually functioning properly and delivering accurate information regarding the /restorehealth process, why.... again IDK, there is some information out there that says something about the utility not being able to work with a .wim file that is newer that the version of DISM, is that accurate IDK, is that important IDK.
These previews will likely contain a large percentage of Windows 8.1 code and who knows how much of new Windows 10 code and where they overlap there may often be bugs such as we're seeing here regarding the System File Checker.
I really don't see any reason to pursue this further, outside of possibly reporting it through the feedback mechanism and wait to see if it's addressed in a subsequent build.

 

[davidhk129]

My thread started by saying.....
"Win 10 TP users :
Please do a system file check and post back your results."

All I want is to find out if there are many, if not all, Win 10 TP users having the same sfc result as I have. That is all.
Why I want to know that ?
Apart from curiosity, to satisfy my assumption that MS has given us an ISO that contains either corrupt files or files incompatible with the systems we are using, namely Win 7 and Win8/8.1.

I never asked for solution.