I’m a happy Ubuntu adopter and have been since version 12.10. I stayed with the plan of new releases until 14.04 LTS and settled on the longer support time. I’ll be installing UM 16.04 as my primary OS once released.
I’ve not totally switched from Windows 7 since some of my must have tasks don’t have an acceptable [to me] Linux replacement.
Because I have experience with Windows since version 3.0 I never subscribed to the “sage advice” to periodically reinstall windows … I always kept my registry cleaned out and NEVER reinstalled until now.
I spent about 3 hours diving through Windows 7 registry and I finally gave up and performed a factory fresh install. The multiple windows updates and installing all the software required took about 8 hours. And I didn’t have to restore data since I share data on an external drive accessible to Windows and Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is sooooooo much easier to maintain for me!
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Glad you’ve settled on UM 16.04 as your primary OS! It’s a great one that’s for sure.
It’s crazy, the stark differences in setup between Windows and Linux. I’ve probably done 5 or 6 fresh installs just this month across multiple distros. I rarely came across any issues and when I did I didn’t even come close to 8 hours till completion!! Take solace in the fact that you probably won’t have to do that again for a while. 
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I do take solace about not having to do it again.
OTOH installing Ubuntu is actually fun for me!
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I did a fresh install of W7 on a laptop recently, it took almost 9 hours to finish including all the updates, one would think that they could speed up this process as they have had a number of years to perfect it!. 
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Maybe their premise is: the more time one has to spend the more invested they will be and therefore creating false loyalty 
I’ve been thinking about my multiple boot arrangement to use Windows 7 for my: tax prep, photo editing and iPhone sync. Maybe I can run win 7 in a virtual environment and install UM on my SSD - moving me into completely uncharted territory. I only have a Windows recovery partition installed by HP that enables me to do a factory reset [I don’t have physical install media for Windows].
- Is it possible to install Windows into a virtual environment from a self created iso image?
- If possible can Windows be maintained?
- Can software installed be properly maintained and upgraded?
HP PC’s have a recovery disk tool and you should be able to create a 3/4 recovery disk set!. (I have this on my HP rig and I can’t remember if it also offers a USB stick tool!).
As long as you have the license key on the PC, download a W7 ISO and create a disk but there won’t be no drivers so make sure you copy any device names you have and look for drivers for that just in case scenario!.
Only problem with the HP recovery disk is you will have a problem when re-installing using the recovery set; because it wants the whole HDD (I’m not sure about an extra SSD?).
I don’t use VM’s so can’t help you there!. 
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