Guide to removing the choice of Operating System at Bootup (Windows XP)

Discussion in 'Software' started by mcadam, Nov 2, 2007.

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  1. mcadam

    mcadam Major Amnesia

    Many people have posted asking how to remove the choice of operating system at Windows bootup. It can frequently happen when another/new operating system has been installed without the old one being deleted or not formatting the partition that the old operating system was on. By following the simple steps below you can remove this choice and will boot straight into the operating system of your choice :)

    Firstly, when in Windows click Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Settings (under Startup and Recovery) > Edit.

    This will present you with the boot.initext file. It may look something like this: -

    Note that yours may differ from this!

    Now, you must remember which option you chose at bootup for the newest operating system. In most cases, it will be the top line. If this is the case, simply delete the bottom line of text that will look similar to -
    Now save the boot.inifile, close it and exit out of the system settings.

    Congratulations, you have now set Windows to boot directly to the newly installed Operating System.

    Please note that in some cases you may not want to do this, in which case ignore this guide! It is also only applicable for versions of Windows XP and before - it will not work with Vista as this has it's own bootup settings which must be configured from within Vista!
     
  2. usafveteran

    usafveteran MajorGeek

    And, then, assuming only one OS installation was actually wanted, the disk space consumed by the unwanted OS could be freed by deleting those files, right?

    Actually, I don't see the removal of a second OS from the screen displayed during bootup as a significant issue. One OS will be the default OS and will boot unless the user selects the other OS. And, the time that screen pauses can be set to a very short time so that there's no significant increase in startup time by leaving the two OS in the boot.ini file. In fact, it could be set to 0 seconds.

    So, if there's any interest at all in keeping that second OS, why not just leave both OS in boot.ini and just set timeout to a very low number? If there's no interest in ever using that second OS, then why not completely remove it by deleting the files, in addition to removing it from boot.ini?
     
  3. Mada_Milty

    Mada_Milty MajorGeek

    This can also be done in MSCONFIG. There is a button on the boot.ini tab that will check all boot paths, and remove any erroneous entries. It's perhaps an easier method for new users?

    [​IMG]
     
  4. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Great guide McAdam


    If anyone has questions on this thread and the info then please start a new thread on your issue related to this guide and include the link to this guide.

    Many thanks
     
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