Windows 7: MSConfig - Advanced Boot access help

Hello All,

I have a seemingly simple question --

When I run msconfig, clicking the the ADVANCED OPTIONS under the BOOT tab does not take me anywhere. Why is that? I am logged on as myself with an Admin account.

I click and nothing happens. So, I cannot make my tweaks (I just need to reduce the memory config to trick my Hauppauge PVR 150 into seeing less than the 4GB I have.)

Would appreciate any help. Thanks. I don't think anyone else has this problem as I have searched several forums over two nights.

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit on an AMD Athlon X2 with 4 GB RAM (4x1GB sticks).

Thanks.

Hello Walrux, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm not sure why, but you might see if you may be able to while logged into the built-in Administrator account instead.

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Try this -

Default Operating System - Change Default Boot OS

open:

"Control Panel/System/Advanced System Settings/Advanced Tab/Startup & Recovery settings"

Do you see a Windows 7 entry for default operating system? If not I have a possible solution to your problem.

Thanks for your replies -

Brink - I had to enable the Administrator log-in, but no I cannot get it to work using that either.

Victek - you are correct. Windows 7 does not show as my default OS - in fact, the drop down list shows nothing that I can choose. I'm interested in your solution.

I looked over the link posted by Victek re the OS change. Just wanted to let you know that although I use 7 most of the time, I use Ubuntu and XP for other reasons and Grub 2 manages my boot loading on start-up.

While I'm not sure why you cannot get MSCONFIG to work. Might be able to do it manually using BCDEDIT.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791501.aspx

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OK, right click "Computer" and select Manage. Then select Disk Management in the left pane. In the middle pane you will see the various partitions/volumes on your hard drive. Right click on the 100 MB System Reserved partition created by Windows 7 and assign a drive letter to it. Reboot. Check the default OS menu again and this time you should see Windows 7. The advanced boot options should now be available too - let us know

Thanks, Victek. I assigned W: to the 100MB reserved space. I now see that W: in my drive list.

However, even after reboot, I still do not show any OS entries on the OS menu and therefore the advanced boot menu still does nothing. Rather frustrating.

Logicearth has suggested BCDEdit -- but that requires some adventure I am yet unwilling to take.

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Sorry that assigning the drive letter didn't just straighten it out. Since you have multiple partitions have a look at them in the disk manager. Is the Windows 7 system reserved partition labeled "System, Active, Primary"? Is the Windows 7 OS partition labeled "Boot, Page, Crash Dump. Primary"?

Have a look a EasyBCD. This is a GUI front-end for BCDEdit and a lot easier to use then the command line. Get the latest 2.0 beta build 82 (designed to work with Windows 7) here:

EasyBCD 2.0 Beta Builds - The NeoSmart Forums

You have to register to access the beta builds, but it's free and only takes a minute. EasyBCD may be able to access the settings. Hope this helps. Let us know.

Thanks.

EasyBCD looks interesting so I'll d/l for future use.

In the meantime, I was able to get around the issue by disconnecting my hd0 (with Linux, XP, and Grub 2); since my hd1 (which has Windows 7 in it) was in itself bootable, I just booted off that. With no Grub 2 intervention, Windows 7 exhibited normal behavior and I could see the Advanced Boot options and make my tweaks since the only OS showing was Windows 7.

I had concerns though - will re-enabling the Grub 2 bootloader skip over my new Windows 7 boot parameters?

So, I gave it a go. Reconnected hd0 and picked Windows 7 from the Grub 2 list. When Windows 7 kicked in, I checked msconfig. The Boot settings now showed "Selective" instead of "Normal." Therefore, my tweaks are in effect even though Windows 7 was again NOT showing on the drop down OS list.

And ... my Hauppauge PVR 150 now works great! I am happy. Only drawback is that this solution will only last as long as I decide to stay at 4GB RAM. Oh well, I'll be upgrading hardware in about a year anyway so I'll probably buy a new TV card.

But my heartfelt thanks to all of you for your helpful suggestions and insights. Crisis managed.

Next step is to bring this behavior to the Grub 2 forums in Ubuntu land.

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Congrats! Sometimes "sneaker-net" is still the best way to get the job done