Editing Shrinking Windows partitions for installing Linux (section)

= Shrinking the partition =

# Now shrink your partition within Windows by pressing <code>Windows+R</code>, typing <code>diskmgmt.msc</code> and pressing ENTER.
# Then, find the NTFS partition you want to shrink (it's usually a big 250GB chunk you see on the screen) and right click > Shrink.
# Now, figure out the amount you need to shrink by. You can shrink anywhere up to 80-90% of your free space '''after''' you've defragmented it.
## '''IMPORTANT''': If "80-90%" for you is less than '''30GiB (see "Why is it GiB and not GB?" below)''', you will have trouble installing Linux with a low amount of disk space. Try removing some more files or install Linux on a completely different drive.
# Shrink the partition by ~30GiB or so for installing Ubuntu or another distro. If the diskmgmt.msc window complains with an error saying "the partition cannot be shrunk" or similar, see "What to do if Windows can't shrink your partition" below.
# You should have "Free Space" that's now there. Just leave it be, it will be filled when you install Ubuntu.

=== What to do if Windows can't shrink your partition ===
You will need to keep trying to defragment the partition (see "Defragmenting the partition" above), or remove some more files, or just try installing Linux on a completely different drive if you can't get '''30GiB''' of free disk space.