From: Bill Cohane :Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Changing default boot


> 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
>

You can also change the boot order within WinNT by going to
Start=>Settings=> Control Panel.  Double Click the "System" icon in Control
Panel window and select the Start Up/Shutdown tab.  There will be a drop
down menu item that lets you select the OS to boot from and below you can
adjust the amount of time to display your boot list for, before selecting
the OS to boot from.  Adjusting the settings here makes the changes to the
boot.ini for you.

Mary Wolden

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