Dual Boot - XP/Vista : Editing Boot Manager Question

calex71

Installed and all is dual booting fine, what i want to do is to change the default option highlighted on boot menu to be XP and not vista.

Should i be doing this from vista or xp????

silverside

doesnt really matter

i think its just a text file on your c drive (boot.ini) which you can edit in notepad.

jester77

Boot.ini is no longer used in Vista. I have a dual boot with XP/Vista, i've not played around much with Vista, I think the interface is dreadful. I did find a program called VistaBootPro which is freeware and it allows you to manage to boot process to enable XP as the default. Do a google for it, it's a nice little app.

calex71

thanks jester thats just what i wanted , your right boot.ini isnt used its now a bootmanager commandline interface which would be nice to learn about but just dont have the time to play about with it at the moment.

ressem

In XP
Control Panel / System Properties/ Advanced Tab / "Startup and Recovery" Settings button

From here you should be able to select the default booting OS.

aidan_walsh

ressem wrote:

In XP
Control Panel / System Properties/ Advanced Tab / "Startup and Recovery" Settings button

From here you should be able to select the default booting OS.

That won't detect Vista, since XP checks the boot.ini file which jester already correctly pointed out is no longer used.

Microsoft have a tool in Vista that can be accessed from the command line called bcdedit.exe which will do the trick for you.

Technet FAQ
ProNetworks How-To thread

ethernet

aidan_walsh wrote:

That won't detect Vista, since XP checks the boot.ini file which jester already correctly pointed out is no longer used.

Microsoft have a tool in Vista that can be accessed from the command line called bcdedit.exe which will do the trick for you.

Technet FAQ
ProNetworks How-To thread

When I was trying to rescue my system, the CD wouldn't even recognise I had Vista installed. Piece of crap!

You'll have to crank open My Computer. I'm using Linux ATM and can't give exact directions, but look out for changing "advanced" options, perhaps in the Control Panel. Vague, I know.

Also try this: Vista circle [formerly 'Start' ], Run. Enter 'msconfig' and open the 'boot' tab. Various boot entires there. I think there's an option to change the default and to give more details on boot-up instead of looking at a green bar and no Windows logo. I have done this. When booting, it just spews lines of drivers being loaded on screen and tells you how much RAM you have. Exciting stuff.

TheDrunkenBrain

kudos Ethernet, I was thinking along those lines but never bothered coz I only reboot maybe once a week lol.

seamus

The bcdedit facility is easy to use. One of those thing that I hate though is that with Vista I'll have to remember a whole pile of new ways to do things like this

ethernet

TheDrunkenBrain wrote:

kudos Ethernet, I was thinking along those lines but never bothered coz I only reboot maybe once a week lol.

You might be better off with XP alone!

Is the command prompt still as ugly as it was in the release candidates?