thanks mates, everythings working just like i want it now
well, except for one thing
i have 32bit and 64bit win7 installed and the boot screen lists them both as "Windows 7" which is absurd
i tried looking into the win boot options, but didnt see any way of changing the names
Again it's back to BCDEdit. The command will look soething like this:
bcdedit /set {current} description "Windows 7 - 32bit”
where "{current}" is actually the identifier of the line item you want to change the description for.
Use BCDEdit to list the items to gettheir identifiers, then chage the desc.
Otherwise if you are talking about the boot.ini files fo rthe XP bootloader, just edit the file and hand change the line items description right there :)
You can relabel the Win7 partitions using EasyBCD.
I thought you were trying to set it up to boot via the BIOS. It appears you have a Windows-managed Multi-Boot menu instead.
What this means is that you can't remove any HD's without doing surgery on the BCD, lest your computer will not boot.
ah cmon, i cant be that thick, now can i? got 2 different boot screens which load depending on the drive i pick in bios and they never appear in sequence so as far as im concerned its all good
anyway, both win7 are now meaningfully labelled
the procedure in easybcd was surprisingly obscure, but capable...
thanks again
ok, this is beyond effin incredible now
months after i had installed everything to my utmost satisfaction i have the sequence of 2 windows boot screens again
for a nice while i could decide to boot either xp 32/64 or w7 32/64 by selecting either the xp or w7 drive in bios
now when i boot the xp drive i get to choose between w7 and older version of windows after which i get to choose from xp 32/64
i have no idea why
i didnt reinstall any of the 4 OS nor did i tinker with any windows boot settings
i find it utterly unbelievable that w7 has the nerve to just do this out of the blue without further notice
anyone experienced this before? can i stop it?
Look at boot tab in Win7 and XP msconfig to see if the stray Win7 listing is there to remove.
If not, Install EasyBCD 2.0 to the OS where Windows Dual Boot was originally set up..
On Edit Boot Menu tab, remove Win7 listing from Dual Boot.
That should do it.
Last edited by gregrocker; 20 Aug 2010 at 13:18.
well, this is what i see in easybcd under xp64
i guess i will need to test this by unplugging the xp drive to be sure...There are a total of 2 entries listed in the bootloader.
Default: Earlier Version of Windows
Timeout: 6 seconds
Boot Drive: C:\
Entry #1
Name: Earlier Version of Windows
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr
Entry #2
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {b75f5281-78cb-11df-bdcb-836ea5548e79}
Drive: K:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
whats bugging me is whether the w7 drive still boots on its own (it does when i select it with xp drive connected, however that could be bios just jumping to the xp drive cos the w7 drive doesnt boot, right?)
if both drives still have their own independent mbr, then the additional boot screen could even be seen as useful to a certain extent when i have both timers set to 6s
yet just how much liberty does w7 take with my machine anyway? what will it decide on its own next?
i wish i could stop it from simply deciding things
This most likely happened because you chose (wisely) to boot via BIOS, but still had a windows-managed Dual Boot configured in either XP or Win7.
In order to get rid of the Windows-managed Dual Boot, you need to remove it on the Edit Boot menu tab of EasyBCD 2.0 from the OS where it was originally set up.
If Win7 autoconfigured the Dual Boot, then it needs to be removed from Win7 so try that first.
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