If you have installed Windows 7 on a computer system that was running a different operating system before chance is that you now see that other operating system in the boot menu during startup. There is not really a need for this unless you decided to go with a dual-boot system for some time. Users who completely switched to Windows 7 might want to remove the old operating system from appearing in the Windows 7 boot menu to speed up boot time and avoid possible mistakes like booting into the wrong operating system.
Windows 7 users who want to remove, edit or add entries to the Windows 7 boot menu have two basic options. The first is available in form of the Msconfig utility that ships with every version of Windows 7. Msconfig might help but it can happen that it is not displaying the other operating systems as was the case with our Windows 7 Pro test system which we upgraded from Windows XP Pro.
The second and more reliable option is Easy BCD, a boot menu editor for Windows 7.
The software program comes with the means to remove, edit and add operating systems in the Windows 7 boot menu. It is for instance easy to remove an existing entry by opening the Add/Remove Entries menu in the program, selecting the operating system that should be removed and clicking on the Delete button.
The application does provide access to extensive settings ranging from configuring the bootloader timeout to advanced options like configuring DEP/NoExecute settings, debugging options or limitations to the cpus and physical memory. The boot menu manager offers a backup option so that the previous settings can be recovered in case of an emergency.
Easy BCD is exactly what the name implies, easy to use. It can be downloaded at the developer’s website where it is available for Windows Vista and Windows 7.
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34 Responses to “How To Manage The Windows 7 Boot Menu”
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[...] Have a boot-related trick or tweak? Let’s hear about it in the comments. EasyBCD is freeware and works with Windows Vista and up. EasyBCD [via gHacks] [...]
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[...] Have a boot-related trick or tweak? Let’s hear about it in the comments. EasyBCD is freeware and works with Windows Vista and up. EasyBCD [via gHacks] [...]
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[...] comments. EasyBCD is freeware and works with Windows Vista and up.
EasyBCD [via gHacks] Share and [...]
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I’ve been trying to use EasyBCD but I never got it to work at all.
There is virtually no documentation or help on how to use it.
Failed to boot every time, and I had to repair with Windows cd :(
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
a great program to add to your easy bcd setup is iReboot also by neosmart. Many times i find i have to restart into the other os and that makes that process much simpler just click and walk away #bootloader
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Is there a software like this for dual-boot Windows 7 and Hackintosh? #bootloader
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@NYCharles: this software works perfect for that … I used it to setup my bootloader .
Try this: [neosmart.net] #bootloader
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
will this help me solve the problem of having to validate Windows 7 and MS Office each time I switch between booting natively and booting virtually? #bootloader
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@NYCharles: Try looking for EasyBCD 2.0 Beta. It worked for me for my win7/hackintosh netbook. I installed the hackintosh first then Win7. Installed EasyBCD, created a new OS entry and selected the correct partition and bing bang boom done. Quick and easy. 1.7.2 was another horrendous story… #bootloader
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Whats wrong with grub? #bootloader
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I absolutely love easybcd… got it to work with dual booting windows xp and snow leopard on my lil eee.
And yes, it works on Windows Xp as well, without vista / 7, and you can see instructions for that here: [neosmart.net] #bootloader
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@Jojitsu: What eee do you have? I’ve been thinking about putting SL on my 1005HAP… #bootloader
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If you’re running a Hackintosh as one of your many OSs, the Chameleon bootloader is by far the best solution.
Bar none.
After messing around with every imaginable combination of multi-booting Fedora/Ubuntu/Vista/Win7/OSX and trying the entire slew of bootloaders from the Vista/7 bootloader to Grub/Grub2, I can say that Chameleon is the sexiest (by a mile), skinnable, easily configurable and just as stable as the other two, without being unwieldy.
All you have to do is make sure your OSX HDD is set to boot b4 the rest, install Chameleon from within OSX86 on the Mac Drive’s MBR (overwriting Darwin) and it will automatically detect any bootable operating systems on all your drives.
If you’re running a single HDD, just overwrite the bootloader on your MBR with Chameleon, and make sure that all your linux variants have their GRUB loaders on a seperate partition instead of the MBR and you’ll be fine. (obviously move GRUB before you install Chameleon)
It might sometimes detect non-bootable windows data partitions, but you can tweak the configuration from within OSX.
Did I mention, it can run at your monitor’s native resolution! No other bootloader allows you to boot in 1920×1080×32.
Link: [chameleon.osx86.hu]
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Gag bootloader is a cool multi-boot loader that rests in the MBR so it isn’t dependent on any particular partition to hold a grub.conf, boot.ini, or bcd file to allow you to boot into other partitions.
[gag.sourceforge.net] #bootloader
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@NYCharles: oh right …good catch @BeanieBag …forgot you need to use the 2.0 beta to get OSx86 working correctly. #bootloader
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Is this compatible with MacPro, either with or without BootCamp? #bootloader
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Sorry but why would the beta be better than the stable release? First time I ever read anyone say that. #bootloader
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@not_a_virus.exe.vbs: The beta supports Windows 7, the public release does not. #bootloader
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@subtle: cool thanks. #bootloader
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I’d like to be able to throw Win7’s repair disk into a little partition and have the option to boot to that.
Doable? #bootloader
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Unfortunately it does not support Win7’s or Windows 2008 R2’s multi boot to VHD feature.
[www.hanselman.com]
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@ploopsy: if you’re not multi-booting with a linux distro, isn’t grub kinda pointless? #bootloader
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@FrancesTheMute: but there is an easy to use menu in windows to configure the bootloader. #bootloader
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I just got done installing Windows 7 on my main hard drive and have an OSX installed on my secondary drive. Does anyone know the syntax for the bootloader to direct it to the second hard drive? (If that question made sense?) I am using EasyBCD and had it working with Vista but I neglected to checked the settings before reformatting the system. #bootloader
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The stable release works perfectly on Windows 7 – exactly as it does on Windows XP… at least in my experience. I’ve formatted, resized, and created partitions on both OSes without any problems (so far). #bootloader
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Anything like this for XP ? #bootloader
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Replaced grub with easybcd quite a while back(vista). Grub would make vista angry if it needed to do some windows updates. Never had any problems out of easybcd and it even stayed after a win7 upgrade. #bootloader
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@ckcallen: I’ve got a 1000HE, and it was pretty effortless to get it working. Mostly followed the guides on insanely mac (there should be one for the 1005, and i think a couple people tried the 1005 using the 1000he guide and everything but wireless worked pretty well for them, though you’ll have to double check that). But yeah, I had xp on there and didn’t want to get rid of it so i was able to install the mac on the empty partition that the eee had when i got it, and using easybcd it was very simple to set up dual boot. #bootloader
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At one point I remember seeing an app that added other OS’s to Windows Vista’s (and Win7’s) Start Menu. So where you can currently select Sleep, Restart, Shutdown, etc, it added a Restart into ‘Other OS’ option. Has anyone else seen this? I can’t seem to find it. #bootloader
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Wow thats seems much easier than the way I used to have to do it
[ubuntuforums.org] #bootloader
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@Jojitsu: Yeah I’ll check out insanelymac again… I took a look at some of the tutorials a while ago and figured it was a bit too much work. Then again, I may just want to try the new Chrome OS before worrying about SL. #bootloader
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