Triple Boot W7, W10 and Mint UEFI with EasyBCD?

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candlebrick

Member
Hi, I am triple booting Win 7, Win 10 and Linux Mint. They are all on the same GPT drive. The computer is running in UEFI.

Is there any way to get EasyBCD to show W7, W10, and Mint as boot options? Right now it is only showing W7 and W10.

Thanks!
 
No.
Not a failing of EasyBCD, but a MS W10 UEFI prohibition.
Read here

EasyBCD and UEFI

With the release of Windows 8 and Windows 10, many new computers are shipping with something known as the UEFI firmware and boot manager in place of the traditional BIOS and MBR approach to startin…
neosmart.net
The third option is the only real way to dual boot Linux and W10 on a UEFI PC, letting grub take control of the boot process.
 
Well, crud. I was hoping that by now there was a work around.

What I did last night was use another program, Grub2Win, to make a custom boot menu. It lets you choose Linux or "Windows Boot Loader". I have it default to the latter after a pause. Then, when you are in the Windows boot loader, you have to choose which Windows OS you want, and I have that default to my preferred one after a pause. I think this is basically what you are saying with the "third option".

I wanted all operating systems on the same top level menu, instead of requiring two clicks. I understand and agree this is not EasyBCD's shortcoming. It is Microsoft. I remember when the new boot rules were announced years ago and there was much protest. It could have been even worse. Maybe someday someone will replace or "fix" the Windows boot loader. Or MS will be persuaded to change.

Thanks, Terry! I am really sorry, you probably have to answer these questions over and over. I had read the article you are referencing (over and over); from the wording it just wasn't clear to me that my question was answered. And generally, the Internet has conflicting info.
 
Yes, that's option 3 as I said "letting grub..."
For those wanting to dual boot Windows and Linux, it's a one click option because the W10 bootmgr can be left to default and you won't get a second boot menu, but keeping a choice of W10 and W7 in bootmgr means the second menu will be presented.
I have just a Windows W10/7 dual boot, but if you're using W10 most of the time as you should be by now for security reasons, you could do as I do and set W10 as default and timeout to 2 seconds.
That means your second menu will flash up for the briefest of moments before W10 starts, but does give you enough time to tap on the down arrow as Windows boots which will stop the clock while you choose W7 on those rare occasions you might need it.
 
Hi Terry! Everything you say makes perfect sense. Thanks for all that.

My system seems to be working. The PC boots to Grub2Win's boot menu, after a few seconds pause if I don't pick Mint it defaults to the Windows boot menu to choose which Windows version to use. However; the Windows boot menu is the uglier black and white one (reminds me almost of DOS days), not the prettier blue more graphical one. EasyBCD still can rename/reorder things, but I miss the more modern looking menu.

Any ideas how to get the blue Windows boot menu working?
 
I prefer the old command line menu for the "down arrow" reason mentioned in my previous post, but if you like the GUI version, tick "Use Metro.." in the edit boot menu page of EasyBCD. (That's what MS called it before someone else claimed copyright on the name)
It might not work though.
It does on my W10/W7 dual-boot (though I choose not to use it), but it didn't work when I had W7 as the default on otherwise the same setup.
The fact that it's the second menu might also cause a problem but I don't know that to be a fact.
It's because use of either menu style is not a simple binary fork in the bootmgr code, but involves many different modules at different stages of the boot process, iirc what the author mentioned years ago during one of the scores of Beta builds of EasyBCD2.
Give it a whirl, It'll either work or not, but won't cause any problem.
 
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