Security professionals often need to use a variety of operating systems to perform their tasks. Dual booting Kali Linux and Windows 11 grants users the ability to switch back and forth between systems, depending on the work that needs done. Being able to access both Kali and Windows from the same computer gives a lot of flexibility for taking advantage of both system’s abilities.

With a dual boot system, you are prompted at system boot to select which operating system to load into. The Kali and Windows installations will remain completely separate, and whenever you need to access the other system, you just need to perform a quick reboot. In this tutorial, we will take you through the step by step instructions of installing Kali alongside Windows 11. We will also cover some prior considerations to keep in mind such as drive partitioning and BitLocker.

NOTE
You may also be considering the option of running Kali inside of a virtual machine. The problem with this approach is that a ton of Kali’s security and penetration testing tools need direct access to the system hardware in order to function. Virtualization provides an abstraction layer between the VM and the host system’s hardware, so Kali will be a lot less useful if installed in this manner. For this reason, it is more recommended to install Kali in a dual boot configuration with Windows 11.

In this tutorial you will learn:

• How to install Kali alongside Windows 11 in dual boot configuration
• How to load into Kali or Windows 11 during system boot

Category	Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used
System	Windows 11, Kali Linux
Software	N/A
Other	Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command.
Conventions	# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Preliminary Considerations

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Before getting started, let’s go over some important points to consider prior to installation.

Creating a bootable USB for installation

One of the prerequisites is a USB drive that has the bootable Kali Linux installer on it. Head over to the Kali download page to grab the latest ISO available. Then, on Windows, you can use a program like Rufus or Etcher to create the bootable USB drive. On Linux, you can create a bootable USB with the ISO and dd command.

Is dual booting compatible with BitLocker?

Users of Kali Linux have a security mindset, and so there is a high chance that BitLocker is enabled for Windows. This feature must be disabled prior to configuring the dual boot system, as the BitLocker encryption will obfuscate the drive contents and it will not be possible for the boot manager to know that two operating systems are on the drive.

Hard drive partitioning

The majority of users probably have their Windows installation configured to take up their entire hard drive. In this case, you will need to partition the hard drive in order to free up some space for the Kali install. This process will not affect your Windows files, rather simply give away some free space to the future Kali installation by shrinking the Windows volume. You will see how to do that in the first steps below.

If you already have a section of unpartitioned free space on your hard drive, Kali Linux can use some or all of that space for installation. Likewise if you have a secondary disk that you want to install Kali on, this can house the Kali installation and be totally separate from the Windows install.

WARNING!

Although we have verified this installation process, you should always make a back up of important files before making changes to the hard drive structure. Please verify that all essential information has been backed up before proceeding with the steps below.

Dual Boot Windows 11 and Kali

Now that you have your bootable Kali USB drive handy and have checked off all the considerations above, let’s proceed with installing Kali alongside Windows 11. Follow along with the step by step instructions below to configure the dual boot system:

1. We will start off in Windows 11. We need to begin by freeing up some space for the Kali installation by shrinking the Windows volume. This part may not be applicable for you if you already have some unpartitioned free space, or if you are installing Kali on a separate drive. Open the Start menu and begin typing “Disk management.” An option for “Create and format hard disk partitions” will show up; click on that.
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   Opening the disk management panel in Windows 11
2. We do not want to touch the EFI boot partition or the recovery partition. But we can right click on the main partition, which should be labeled as C:, and click on “Shrink Volume.”Choosing to shrink the volume of the biggest partition of our hard drive
3. Now we will enter how much we want to shrink the volume by. This number must be in megabytes. In our case, we will shrink the volume by 30 GB in order to give that space to Kali. Therefore, we will enter 30000 MB into the box. Click on “Shrink” after reviewing the info in this pane, and when you are ready to proceed with the change.Enter how much space you would like to shrink the Windows partition by
4. You should now see some unallocated space in the disk management utility. We can leave this space alone and use it for our Kali installation.Viewing the unallocated space in disk management
5. Now it is time to insert the USB drive and reboot the system. When the computer boots up, depending on the configured boot order, the USB may load automatically. Otherwise, you will have to press a certain key – sometimes Escape or a function key like F11 or F12 (it varies by manufacturer) – in order to load into the boot menu and select your installation media.
6. At the Kali Linux installer menu, choose Graphical Install by ensuring that this selection is highlighted and press Enter.Choosing graphical install from Kali Linux installer
7. Next, you will need to flip through a few standard prompts about language selection, keyboard layout, and a few others. After clicking through these initial windows, you will get to set your desired hostname for the Kali installation. For the next prompt, domain name, you can simply leave it blank.Setting the Kali hostname
8. The next two prompts ask you choose a name and username for the Kali installation.
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   Setting username for Kali
9. Then, fill out a secure password for the user account.Setting Kali Linux password for user account
10. After setting the time zone, you will come to the disk partitioner. If you have unallocated space from the first few steps we guided you through above, then it is okay to select “Guided – use the largest continuous free space.” If you have some other kind of setup, like a spare hard drive or you wish to configure the partitions manually, then you can select the appropriate option. Most users will just want to go with the first selection.Entering the disk partitioner using the largest continuous free space
11. The next prompt asks you about how to write the partitions. “All files in one partition” should work fine. Some users prefer to separate the partitions for various reasons, but in the majority of situations, it will not matter at all. Select the first option and click Continue.Choose to put all files in one partition
12. Now is your chance to review all of the changes that are about to be written to the disk. Verify that the Kali Linux install is going to consume the unallocated space that we freed up in earlier steps. Make sure the NTFS partition (on which Windows 11 resides) is still listed as being unchanged. If you are happy with the change summary, click on Continue.Review the disk changes carefully before proceeding
13. Kali Linux will now start installing to the space we have alloted it.Kali Linux is currently installing alongside Windows 11
14. Once the first part of the installation finishes, we get to select some default software. The default selections of the Xfce desktop environment and most popular tools should be good choices.Choose what software to include with the Kali installation
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15. When the process finishes, you can eject the USB installation media and reboot your system. Proceed to the next section for information about choosing which operating system to boot into when turning on the computer.Reboot to load into either Kali or Windows 11

How to Boot Into Windows 11 or Kali Linux

From now on, when you start your system, the GRUB loader will ask you which operating system you want to load into. You can make your selection by using the arrow keys and then press the Enter key to load into what you selected.

If you do not interact with the menu for a few seconds, the system will load into Kali by default.

DID YOU KNOW?
You may edit the GRUB_DEFAULT option within the /etc/default/grub file if you would like your boot menu to select Windows by default, instead of Kali.

Closing Thoughts

In this tutorial, we saw how to install Kali Linux alongside Windows 11. Having these two systems in a dual boot configuration offers the best of both worlds for security professionals and penetration testers that need access to multiple operating systems and various security tools.