Solved How do I bypass os select screen that appears during boot?

[lbeck]

I did a clean install of win 7 pro 64 bit to get rid of vista. During the install and program reload i deleted the old vista windows directory. Now when I boot my machine it gives a screen to select my os prior to loading windows 7.

How can I disable or bypass that screen?

 

[gregrocker]

I don't know how you "deleted the Vista directory" but that is not how to Clean Install Windows 7. If you have a Dual Boot menu now then you must have installed Win7 to another partition.

Did you boot the installer, do a Custom Install using the Drive Options in Steps 7/8 to delete all partitions, create and format new as you wish. This is a Clean install.

If you have a Dual Boot menu then you likely just installed Win7 to another partition and still have Vista on there. Can you select Vista from the menu?

Either follow the steps I outlined above or post back a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

 

[whs]

Have a look at this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/210983-dual-boot-delete-os.html

 

[lbeck]

I don't know how you "deleted the Vista directory" but that is not how to Clean Install Windows 7. If you have a Dual Boot menu now then you must have installed Win7 to another partition.

Did you boot the installer, do a Custom Install using the Drive Options in Steps 7/8 to delete all partitions, create and format new as you wish. This is a Clean install.

If you have a Dual Boot menu then you likely just installed Win7 to another partition and still have Vista on there. Can you select Vista from the menu?

Either follow the steps I outlined above or post back a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

Since this is before Windows is loaded I can't so a screen capture so I took a picture of the screen. The one labled Advanced Boot Manager comes after the BIOS screen and prior to loading windows. If I click F8 I get the second "Advanced Boot Options". I stopped here because I don't want to revert to an earlier time and reverse many of the programs and settings that I've installed.

What I want to do is to bypass the boot options altogether, since I don't envision needing to revert to an "earlier version of windows."

 

[gregrocker]

I just explained that menu would not be there if you had actually clean installed Win7 and not left Vista on the HD in another partition. So we need to see the requested screenshot of http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html to look at the configuration once you boot into Win7. Please do that now.

It would also help if you can tell us what you did exactly when it came time to select where to install Win7. You should have used the Drive Options to delete all partitions and create new in Steps 7/8 of http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

I also asked you exactly what happens when you choose Earlier Version of Windows?

 

[TJG]

Go to start and type : msconfig
select the boot tab and make windows7 the default
then set timeout to 0
see if that works for you.

 

[gregrocker]

That only hides the listing for the Vista OS or remnants which may still be on the HD or he would not get the Boot Menu. Nine times out of ten we find that the install has been made to a Recovery or data partition with the old OS still onboard. So we don't just hide the Dual Boot listing when half the HD might be taken by the old OS or some other mess made.

This requires special steps which we can specify only after seeing the Disk Mgmt screenshot.

 

[lbeck]

I just explained that menu would not be there if you had actually clean installed Win7 and not left Vista on the HD in another partition. So we need to see the requested screenshot of http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html to look at the configuration once you boot into Win7. Please do that now.

It would also help if you can tell us what you did exactly when it came time to select where to install Win7. You should have used the Drive Options to delete all partitions and create new in Steps 7/8 of http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

I also asked you exactly what happens when you choose Earlier Version of Windows?

The requested screen capture is attached.

Forgive my memory, but during the multiple steps in the clean install, I don't recall "what you did exactly when it came time to select where to install Win7. " I don't think I did anything weird though. I suspect that if a choice was to install on my C: drive that I selected that. I don't recall choosing to delete all partitions, but I may have. My objective in the clean install prior to learning of this forum was to delete Vista and install 7, knowing that I'd need to re-install programs. Somewhere I read that it was not necessary and inadvisable to reformat the HDD. I think this was on a Microsoft site concerning a clean install procedure for Win 7.

If I choose to "choose Earlier Version of Windows" it goes back to the BIOS screen and then gives the same request.

Let me know if I can provide further info.

 

[gregrocker]

There are no specs listed so we don't know what brand PC you have, but it's likely the Recovery partition won't run now anyway, nor is the OEM partition needed.

What I would do is look over the steps for getting and keeping a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to see how close you came. If it varied much and you see better choices you could have made then I'd do it over, this time deleting all partitions during install.

Otherwise if you'd want to delete and reclaim the space from the first two partitions we can help you do that.

But if you'd prefer to keep what you have then it looks okay with the boot files on C and nothing awry. To remove the Dual Boot menu type msconfig in Start Search box, on Boot tab delete the extra listing. If this doesn't work then install EasyBCD (click Download - no Name or Email required) to do the same on the Edit OS Menu tab.

 

[lbeck]

Thanks. I like this forum so decided to fill in some specs for better future support. Also, I did some remembering and found that the exact procedure was from MSFT here. The only deviation is when at some point the procedure, or the reinstallation of programs, claimed that I was running out of space on my boot drive. At that point I looked at the files there and saw that a directory called windows.old was very large, so I attempted to delete it. It's actually still there but is empty.

I've come too far to do another clean install. I'd rather live with the unwanted boot screen than to re-install my programs.

I'll try the other options that you suggest and will report back on success/failure, but I may not get to resuming this for a day or so. Decided to post now in case anything just added may provide additional clues.

Thanks again.

 

[gregrocker]

Having Windows.old means you didn't even boot the installer to correctly reinstall Win7. Run Disk Cleanup to clean it out.

I told you how to get rid of the Dual Boot menu.

 

[lbeck]

Problem solved

There are no specs listed so we don't know what brand PC you have, but it's likely the Recovery partition won't run now anyway, nor is the OEM partition needed.

What I would do is look over the steps for getting and keeping a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to see how close you came. If it varied much and you see better choices you could have made then I'd do it over, this time deleting all partitions during install.

Otherwise if you'd want to delete and reclaim the space from the first two partitions we can help you do that.

But if you'd prefer to keep what you have then it looks okay with the boot files on C and nothing awry. To remove the Dual Boot menu type msconfig in Start Search box, on Boot tab delete the extra listing. If this doesn't work then install EasyBCD (click Download - no Name or Email required) to do the same on the Edit OS Menu tab.

Thanks Greg. The EasyBCD enabled bypassing the boot screen, which is exactly what I wanted!

 

[gregrocker]

Good work!

Let us know if there's anything else, stick with the tools and methods in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to keep a perfect install.