MSConfig - Advanced Boot access help

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.

walrux said:

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.)

Thanks.

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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. Win7 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

walrux said:

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. Win7 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.

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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

walrux said:

Victek said:

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.

walrux said:

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 Win7 in it) was in itself bootable, I just booted off that. With no Grub 2 intervention, Win7 exhibited normal behavior and I could see the Advanced Boot options and make my tweaks since the only OS showing was Win7.

I had concerns though - will re-enabling the Grub 2 bootloader skip over my new Win7 boot parameters?

So, I gave it a go. Reconnected hd0 and picked Win7 from the Grub 2 list. When Win7 kicked in, I checked msconfig. The Boot settings now showed "Selective" instead of "Normal." Therefore, my tweaks are in effect even though Win7 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