Best way to Dual Boot 32-bit Windows 10 with 8.1

klerg said:

I usually turn off hibernation so do not have to deal with that. But cannot use Windows without a swap file, and most of time let Windows handle it.

A few tips.

You will have the option of creating 2 types of VHD, one is fixed size (make sure you leave enough room for programs, swap, hibernation, etc in case you need those). Ant the other is dynamic size, this will "grow" as needed, but it can have unexpected results, like... if Windows needs swap, it might need space right away, and if it's not there, you will get errors. I find a good practice (for this setup) to turn off hibernation as you mention. Just, swap file can be unexpected, so leave enough room.

hroldan said:

A few tips.

You will have the option of creating 2 types of VHD, one is fixed size (make sure you leave enough room for programs, swap, hibernation, etc in case you need those). Ant the other is dynamic size, this will "grow" as needed, but it can have unexpected results, like... if Windows needs swap, it might need space right away, and if it's not there, you will get errors. I find a good practice (for this setup) to turn off hibernation as you mention. Just, swap file can be unexpected, so leave enough room.

Sure go for it.

Nice to know there is two types of VHD that can be made. I may go with a fixed size as it will be 100 GB so that is plenty of room for swap, programs, and other things like that. I assume if pick dynamic size any errors will go away once the swap file is actually increased in size. And if not, that is something that can be looked into and I'm sure a workaround is possible. But as you mentioned if hibernation is turned off that will help a lot as more space can be allocated for the swap file and it will "grow" faster.

Just in case anyone is interested on a workaround (as long as you have multiple hard drives):

In the past I removed the DVD drive of a laptop (and also a desktop all in one computer) and put a hard drive caddy instead, BUT... I didn't put any screws and the thing fit perfectly (it didn't come out on it's own, so, it was safe). This way I could replace the hard drive anytime and boot a diff OS entirely without any access to the other drives.

Later, I modified another hdd caddy (basically made my own out of a broken DVD), and it was made in a way that a piece of the hard drive was left out (about 1cm), this was my favorite because it was almost like replacing floppy disks, but instead it was a hard drive. The benefit here is you don't use USB ports, and this allows you to boot anything. BTW yes, you can have Windows on USB drivers too, but I don't exactly like that option.

cereberus said:

You cannot use hibernation on vhdx drives.

I see that is good to make a note of then