Editing the boot Menu?

Hi Chris,

I think that is the quickest responce I have ever got.

Thanks for the info I will give it a try tonight.

Eddy

Glad to help :)

also, if you right click My Computer.. Properties.. Advanced tab.. Startup and Recovery button, you'll see options for System Startup.  This will show all the options for startup, and you can choose the default, and the time here.  

This actually edits the boot.ini file behind the scenes.

It won't remove the old entry, but you can stop it being default.  

i've had this problem in the past, do what chris has said... however, i'm not sure of how successful you'll be... in my scenario, i had two show up that were the exact same OS, no matter which one i selected, they both booted the same system... so i just deleted the file.

the result was that every time i booted i got a prompt that said something to the effect of: Boot.ini missing or corrupt. it would then pause for a second and continue loading. ultimately it solved my problem, but it caused an extra second delay when trying to boot. which is also annoying (maybe not AS annoying though)

Don't delete the file it's required by Windows.

Taking it down to one entry (under Operating Systems) will stop the boot menu appearing - but ensure the default is set correctly, you don't want it not loading anything at all.

boot.ini in the root of the system drive (usually c:)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows NT"

my dual boot boot.ini looks like above - in order to change the default boot OS I just edit the partition number that it loads from (ie 1 for 2000 2 for NT) in line 3

removing the last line completely would mean the menu only showed windows 2000, remove the one from last line and it will show only NT

These statements I believe are call ARC paths and relate to the type of disk inuse (ide/scsi) the actual physical disk number (scsi id or master slave) and finally the partition number of the boot files - although its been 4 years since I learnt about these

I THINK ! multi(0) is ide multi(1) is scsi disk(0) is the scsi id number or rdisk(0) is the ide disk number and finally the partition is the partition number where the system files reside

basically if the arc path points to the wrong partition then windows cant find the files to start the OS

hope that helps

Richy, if you've ever been in linux, you'd recognize the disk, rdisk, partition type dialogs.... as for the bootloader, i do believe the question was to remove the thing completely... so it boots the one OS all the time without the delay.

and yes chris, the file is used by windows but not NEEDED.... if it doesn't exist, it simply boots the OS on the drive.... looks for a default path and boots. if not, i'm guessing it would probably either prompt or fatally crash... but since he's only using C:\WINNT as his system folder, i'm guessing it would complain, pause for 2 seconds, then continue... like it did for me.

as for what should be in boot.ini...

mine looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

so, theoretically, you should be able to delete the last entry in the list and have it automatically boot windows 2000 every time. without prompt. as i only single boot, windows 2000 and never get prompted.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your help. Solved the problem using Chris-Dent solution so he gets the points.

Thanks again

Eddy