Setting up a machine with multiple OS / profiles

[irishbeast]

Hi all

 

I am going to offer some free IT sessions in my local community covering all kinds.  I have 2 machines. One is a high spec Windows 11 desktop and the other a middle of the road Windows 10 laptop.

 

Is it possible to set up the desktop to run both WIndows 10 and Windows 11? Ideally i want to show people using the OS which they have at home. 

 

Also this might be a stupid question but can you run the Mac OS on a Windows PC as I would like to learn it and possibly Linux for myself. Linux seems a better choice for local LLMs which I am learning at the moment. 

 

Laptop isn't really powerful enough (i5 7th gen and 24 gb ram) for multiple operating systems but the desktop is. (Ryzen 9 5900X, 64 gb DDR4 4000mhz ram,  loads of SSD)

 

Ideally I would have profiles on the desktop for people to log in to and be able to resume on the following sessions. Having multiple operating systems would be ace. I want my students to have a clean Windows experience and not use my log in as my desktop is like a bomb site!

 

Thanks in advance

[OddOod]

18 minutes ago, irishbeast said:

Is it possible to set up the desktop to run both WIndows 10 and Windows 11? Ideally i want to show people using the OS which they have at home. 

Unequivocally easiest way would be to have two separate SATA drives, each with an OS installed. To swap between OSs, just shutdown, swap drives, boot.

 

18 minutes ago, irishbeast said:

Also this might be a stupid question but can you run the Mac OS on a Windows PC

As far as I know the Hackintosh is dead. Might come back when windows on ARM is alive and kicking, but unlikely IMO.
 

19 minutes ago, irishbeast said:

Linux seems a better choice for local LLMs which I am learning at the moment. 

Meh. Given WSL and Docker, the space is pretty OS agnostic.
 

21 minutes ago, irishbeast said:

Ideally I would have profiles on the desktop for people to log in to and be able to resume on the following sessions.

It's not hard to create user profiles in Windows. But remember: when you logoff, all your windows and stuff close. If you want them to have the ability to actually pickup where they left off, you're more looking at spinning up VMs. I have no experience with it, but apparently Proxmox (free community tier is fine for this) is the way to go for that. 

[irishbeast]

2 hours ago, OddOod said:

Unequivocally easiest way would be to have two separate SATA drives, each with an OS installed. To swap between OSs, just shutdown, swap drives, boot.

 

As far as I know the Hackintosh is dead. Might come back when windows on ARM is alive and kicking, but unlikely IMO.
 

Meh. Given WSL and Docker, the space is pretty OS agnostic.
 

It's not hard to create user profiles in Windows. But remember: when you logoff, all your windows and stuff close. If you want them to have the ability to actually pickup where they left off, you're more looking at spinning up VMs. I have no experience with it, but apparently Proxmox (free community tier is fine for this) is the way to go for that. 

Thanks for the response. Very helpful

 

I have a couple of NVMEs installed internally. Would I be able to install Windows 10 on the secondary one? I dont have any SATA drives any more. Pretty sure I got rid ages ago

 

Partioning maybe? 

 

Interesting about Hackintosh. I will look into it 

 

When I say pick up where they left off i just mean settings etc. Not being able to resume a session although it is tempting as VMs are not something I know much about either but you are not the first person to recommend them

 

Nice one

[C2dan88]

11 hours ago, irishbeast said:

I have a couple of NVMEs installed internally. Would I be able to install Windows 10 on the secondary one? I dont have any SATA drives any more. Pretty sure I got rid ages ago

Yes, can be any type of  drive. Steps I would do is

• Connect one drive, install windows 10
• Disconnect first drive, install second drive and install win11
• Reconnect first drive.
• To choose which version of windows to boot, boot to bios and and choose os from boot menu.

[irishbeast]

On 1/25/2025 at 11:36 AM, C2dan88 said:

Yes, can be any type of  drive. Steps I would do is

• Connect one drive, install windows 10
• Disconnect first drive, install second drive and install win11
• Reconnect first drive.
• To choose which version of windows to boot, boot to bios and and choose os from boot menu.

Brilliant! That sounds like much less hassle! Thank you very much buddy