After nearly a year, Microsoft finally fixed a Windows 11 bug from last August, making it easier than ever to try Linux.
In its May 2025 patch, which also saw Recall return, Microsoft resolved a nine-month-old bug that made it difficult or impossible to dual-boot Windows 11 with another operating system, specifically Linux.
Now that the bug has been resolved, it's the perfect time to try Linux and maybe even leave behind Windows 11.
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Microsoft finally fixes Windows 11 dual-booting bug from August 2024
Last August, Microsoft released this Windows 11 patch that didn't exactly go as planned: It introduced a Secure Boot Advanced Targeting (SBAT) setting that was intended to block old or unsafe bootloaders in Windows 11. (A bootloader is the program responsible for starting up your operating system when you turn on your PC.)
Unfortunately, this SBAT setting had the unintended side effect of breaking dual-boot setups, where users have two different operating systems running on the same PC and can freely swap between them.
The SBAT setting was not supposed to be applied to Windows 11 PCs with dual-boot setups, but the update failed to detect those setups on some devices.
As Microsoft explains in one of several updates on the patch, "On some devices, the dual-boot detection did not detect some customized methods of dual-booting and applied the SBAT value when it should not have been applied."
This error meant that dual-booting no longer worked for some users. Luckily, that's no longer the case.
As of May 2, the issue is officially resolved. Windows 11 version 24H2 cleared up the SBAT error at last, meaning you should now have no problems running a dual-boot Windows 11 system.
That's exactly why now is the perfect time to try dual-booting and see if Linux might be a better fit for you than Windows 11.
This bug fix is the perfect reason to try out Linux
I switched to Linux rather than jumping from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and haven't regretted my choice. The past few months, I've tried out a few different versions of Linux, known as "distributions." There are dozens of them, most of which are free and open-source.
Switching to Linux can give you more freedom to choose how your device runs and how your operating system looks and feels.
Most Linux distributions are also more private than Windows, making it a good choice if data privacy is a top priority for you.
Linux is also a more lightweight operating system than Windows, which means it can be a great way to revive an older laptop that's slowing down on Windows or can't run Windows 11 at all.
Dual-booting can be a great way to try out Linux since it doesn't require you to completely delete your Windows environment.
If you're new to Linux, I'd recommend starting with a beginner-friendly distribution like Ubuntu, Fedora, or Mint.
