Vista: Use BCDEDIT to change boot up options (dual boot w/XP Prof)
Contributed by Jimmy Selix 
Tagged: Microsoft Vista This is a quickie recipe on how to change the boot options in Vista. If your running XP and Vista (dual booting), you can use bcdedit from the command line to change the default booting OS, name, etc. Lets take a look!
If you are dual booting XP Prof and Vista, you most likely have the annoying “Earlier Version of Windows” in the boot list and have Vista booting as the default. Lets change that!
In Vista, you do not have the Boot.ini like in XP where these type of settings were changed. We will need to use command line and the bcdedit command.
1. Open up the command line as an administrator or user w/admin rights (right click on the Shorcut > Run As and lets you run as an admin if your on a non-admin account)
2. type this command to see the current state of affairs.
bcdedit
you prob will see something like this (my original boot option)
__________________________________________
D:\Users\seamonkey> bcdedit
Windows Boot Manager
——————–
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
displayorder {ntldr}
{current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
Windows Legacy OS Loader
————————
identifier {ntldr}
device partition=C:
path \ntldr
description Earlier Version of Windows
Windows Boot Loader
——————-
identifier {current}
device partition=D:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {1ecfd635-a8ea-11db-bb9b-ddf07c6aaff1}
nx OptIn
3. to change a value, you need to use this type of command:
bcdedit /set {identifiers name} nameofparamater “value to replace with”
for example, to change my XP os name from “Earlier Version….” to “XP Pro”, i would use this command:
bcdedit /set {ntldr} description “XP Pro”
to change the default boot os to xp, i would use this command:
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} default “{ntldr}”
then type:
bcdedit
and you should see the changes you made.
The main thing is to remember to run the command line with an admin account or as the administrator.
Also, you can type: bcdedit /help to get a list of all of the parameters/flags you can use.
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Hari said on October 2, 2008
thanx …. i works fine …….
a said on November 12, 2008
Thnx very useful!
Sumit said on December 14, 2008
Very very thanks !
MAGGEN said on February 19, 2009
thx it really help
Ke said on May 11, 2009
Can somebody tell me how is the standart for win vista??
Joel said on May 11, 2009
When you type…. bcdedit /set {bootmgr} default “{ntldr}” you need to remove the quotes
Nunya Buziness said on August 9, 2009
Its great that you shared this SIMPLE way to do this without trying to get us to buy some program to do it. Thanks for the Great Info.
Anon said on September 14, 2009
Thanks for sharing this info…
aquaphx said on October 19, 2009
thanks for the tips.
but since i don’t truly understand each parameter. could u give some easy line to change back vista to default (just in case). thanks.
Eric said on January 20, 2010
That works great. Now how do I rename Vista?
Rick said on February 16, 2010
I don’t know if it would work in this instance but I have vista and server 2008 installed on my one hard drive and I had the server as the default choice in the boot menu.
I typed “msconfig” into the search box in the start menu.
The Syetem Configuration Dialog box appears.
Go to the Boot tab
select whichever OS I wanted as the default
Then hit the “Set as Default” button.
It was dead easy with no command line needed and now I can power up my computer and walk away and it will be at the login screen for vista when I return
Anonymous said on March 11, 2010
The Boot Manger display has two descriptions, Top: Microsoft Windows Vista
Bottom: Microsoft Windows XP Setup
My problem is that when I display the store contents the bottom message is not there. Initially I deleted the ntldr. I specified {current} should be the first and the default. I want the bottom one to go away. Where do I find it?
Anonymous said on March 21, 2010
the box appears and in a flash the bcdedit again goes off……..plz help me
Name said on April 10, 2010
very helpful. this works for Windows 7 also. in my instance to remove the “earlier version of windows” entry before boot. in a command prompt (administratively priveleged) do bcdedit /? /delete to show the syntax of what you want to clean up. in my case it was a ntldr… and it shows directly in the help file.
Anonymous said on April 13, 2010
Thank you,
My problem is that I have removed XP from my computer. When I boot there two options: Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows XP Setup. I Want to remove the XP message but it is not in the bcdedit command string. Any ideas?
Blaine
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Subject: [tech-recipes] Re: Vista: Use BCDEDIT to change boot up options (dual boot w/XP Prof) | Microsoft Vista | Tech-Recipes
bharat1 wrote, in response to BlaineA:
the box appears and in a flash the bcdedit again goes off……..plz help me
Link to comment: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2014/vista_using_bcdedit_boot_up_options_dual_boot_xp_prof/#comment-40797036
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Halofan said on May 19, 2010
Can anyone tell me how can change the anem of vista like in the system properties i get Windows vista ultimate so i wnt to change it to Windows Vista Halo like the vista black edition
Riyaadjondah said on July 17, 2010
brilliant! thanks for posting this on the net. works a treat. now ive got “windows xp” rather than “earlier version of windows” listed as a boot option.
Ruedi said on August 26, 2010
WIN7 din’t boot on a dual boot (XP/7) system because, how nows the device was set to unknow. With BCDEDIT I was able to change these settings.
BCDEDIT /set {…..hexID…..} device partion=D:
G G98 said on September 15, 2010
what if there is no exiting “Windows Legacy OS Loader”? but there was an xp partition what was C. before installing Vista now D:?
Mohan said on January 28, 2011
Thank u :) it helped me a lot. I was unaware of bcdedit on Vista.
Ejsalom said on April 11, 2011
In the XP boot.ini I had the option to define in which drive is each OS, but I’m unable to find how to do it with BCDEDIT… it seems that can define only patitions.
Buildern said on June 9, 2011
i installed server 2008 and now formated the drive but i still get the “earlier version of windows” how can i remove that