Question about Dual Boot Systems

Hello All,
In my search for what I am going to run to replace my old SCO Unix V/5 multiuser server is a New Intel i5 4.0 with 8 GB of Memory and 500GB HD. I'm going to run OpenSuse Leap 42.3 Linux and FilePro is my data base which will move right over with a few small modifications.

My Big Question is whether I should only have OpenSuse Leap on the computer or should I also put Windows 7 or Windows 10 on it in case I have to some machine or system things that needs to be done ?

If so, which is easiest to install first ?

Reliability and Stability are very important in my business so I appreciate any help i can get.

Thanks
Tom

You could look at the option of running Windows in a Virtual Machine under Linux (I use VirtualBox for this) - that would ease communication between the two systems and obviate the necessity to dual boot. You have enough RAM to easily support that.

If you are going to dual boot, install Windows first as otherwise Windows mucks up Linux's Grub setup.

If it's a choice between Windows 7 or 10, I would say Windows 7 due to its stability and the lengthy time for Windows 10 updates. However, the shelf-time of Windows 7 may be limited, so perhaps Windows 8.1 would be a good bet (it's reasonably good once you've house-trained it).

I had a heck of a time getting windows 7 on a new core i3 because of the new usb. Finally found a program to re-image it with drivers even after I did the official MS way. If you have ps/2 ports then you should be able to get it on otherwise you'll need a way to get usb working.

For some time it has been suggested that one installs Windows first then linux.
That may change but I don't see it soon.

I prefer to have a single drive for each OS usually.

It is also possible that one could install Windows 10 and run a free virtual machine to run some other OS if they didn't want to dual boot. If you had an OEM builder version or full retail of windows 10 you could use it as the VM client.

https://build.opensuse.org/image_templates could run SELS maybe too.

Installing Windows first has always went well for me.
I later installed Linux and Grub successfully took over as the bootloader and has worked flawlessly.

I'd go with Windows 7:-

Ran Open Suse for a little over a year. It was stable and very reliable for me.

in addition to what was already said - i always partition my hard drives in such a way that i can still make decisions about dual booting etc. later on.

i.e. always have at least 4 primary partitions on the hd. one of them is swap, 50% of physical RAM is usually considered enough nowadays.

Most big name linux will support uefi too so you have an ability to go with gpt disks.