Roger Griffiths <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I have Windows NT and '98 resident on my machine. The boot
>process offers me the NT boot menu and if I don't select
>'98 within 30 seconds the PC boots to NT by default. What
>I want to know is - is it possible to change the default so
>that it boots into '98 by default rather than NT.




Hi Roger

You can edit the file C:\boot.ini to change either the 30 second
delay or the default operating system. (You will have to right
click on boot.ini and remove the "Read-only" check mark from
"Properties" before you can change its contents.)

Lets open boot.ini using Notepad to see what's in the file.

You might see the following lines in your boot.ini:

[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="Windows NT4 Workstation"
C:\="Windows 98"

Notice what follows "default" in the third line. You might change
this line (using Notepad) to read:

default=C:\

This would make "Windows 98" your default operating system. You
could also change the boot delay from 30 seconds to whatever you
like. I chose 5 seconds.

Your boot.ini would now be

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=C:\
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT4 Workstation"
C:\="Windows 98"

Notice that what's inside the quotation marks is a mere description
of the operating system and you can change this to whatever you want.
It's purely cosmetic and won't affect anything except how the boot
menu reads. Also notice that the description does not appear on the
"default" line.

Comments:

It wouldn't be a bad idea to save a copy of the original boot.ini
before you begin experimenting on it.
Don't forget to save your changes before exiting Notepad.
You should probably mark boot.ini as "Read-only" after you're done.
I based this message on my Windows 2000 boot.ini and it might look
slightly different from your Windows NT4 boot.ini.

Regards,
Bill

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