[Download] Vista Hide 'n Seek BETA

Hi UCG, welcome to the boards, though I guess you've lurked a fair while if you're using HnS.

HnS is a UI which builds a menu.lst for a custom version of Grub4Dos, and it works with Vista by pretending to be the Vista bootmgr, so that the Vista MBR calls it instead of its own version.

It does this by renaming bootmgr to bootmgr.hns, and renaming itself to bootmgr.
Then in the grub menu.lst, when you select Vista, it chains to bootmgr.hns (the real Vista bootmgr).

Vista SP1 and SP2 both replaced the bootmgr program, so you can see the problem. The program it replaced was not its own copy, but the HnS grub in disguise. The one it should have replaced was bootmgr.hns but it didn't know that of course.

The way you should have handled this (for future reference - SP3 perhaps) would be

rename bootmgr to grldr
rename bootmgr.hns to bootmgr
install SPx
rename bootmgr to bootmgr.hns
rename grldr to bootmgr

and HnS would still have been working.

What you need to do now though, is

delete bootmgr.hns
(that's the old SP1 version and is now preventing your attempt to rerun the UI because it can't rename the SP2 version when the name already exists)
delete vhns.xpm.gz (the splash image)
menu.lst (the boot menu)
and any other .hns files lying around
Rerun the UI.exe
That should put you back where you were.
 
Am using Vista SP2 and XP Pro SP3 with EasyBCD and just installed HnS and noticed a couple of things using it on my AMD64 x2 3500+:

1) During the install process of HnS it appeared to be hung on step 4/5 so I pressed the Red Button on the app. Nothing happened so I pressed it again. Still nothing. Then in about 20-30 secs later HnS appeared to complete the installation sucessfully.

2) Do not know if I missed something but when selecting XP it boots fine and the Vista partition is hidden. However when I select Vista from HnS I still see the boot menu that EasyBCD created showing Vista and XP. I select Vista but when Vista booted the XP boot partition was still visible.

Is EasyBCD still suppose to be used with HnS? If so why is XP boot drive which, in Vista is drive H: visible? Both o/s are installed on the same hard drive C: in a primary followed by Vista in the 2nd primary partition.
 
Last edited:
frustrated999 said:
Am using Vista SP2 and XP Pro SP3 with EasyBCD and just installed HnS and noticed a couple of things using it on my AMD64 x2 3500+:

1) During the install process of HnS it appeared to be hung on step 4/5 so I pressed the Red Button on the app. Nothing happened so I pressed it again. Still nothing. Then in about 20-30 secs later HnS appeared to complete the installation sucessfully.

2) Do not know if I missed something but when selecting XP it boots fine and the Vista partition is hidden. However when I select Vista from HnS I still see the boot menu that EasyBCD created showing Vista and XP. I select Vista but when Vista booted the XP boot partition was still visible.

Is EasyBCD still suppose to be used with HnS? If so why is XP boot drive which, in Vista is drive H: visible? Both o/s are installed on the same hard drive C: in a primary followed by Vista in the 2nd primary partition.
Click to expand...
Hn'S is designed to hide Vista from XP (so as to protect Vista's system restore points), not the other way around...
You can hide Vista from XP, but you can't hide XP from Vista.
As for EasyBCD, its generally best to use one or the other, not both at the same time... :wink:
The reason is, Hn'S takes control at the top level, via a GRLDR disguised as a bootmgr, and so the menu you see is actually from Grub4Dos (the bootloader Hn'S is designed to work with), not the Vista boot menu. When you select Vista in that menu, it chains to the real bootmgr, which has been renamed by Hn's to bootmgr.hns, after first unhiding the Vista partition. When you select XP, it chains directly to NTLDR (XP's bootloader), and does not go through the Vista bootmgr, hence why using EasyBCD with Hn'S would be next to useless. Since EasyBCD is designed to modify the Vista BCD store (which bootmgr calls up), when using Hn'S, any XP entry in the Vista BCD would be redundant since you can already boot XP directly from GRLDR's menu.
But you still may have a case where its useful to use EasyBCD for a particular task, even when using Hn's, though obviously that would not be very often.

Jake
 
HnS takes care of booting XP and Vista as needed, so the XP entry in Vista's bootloader isnt needed, but you should still keep the Vista entry or you wont be able to boot Vista.
 
The reason why HnS gives you the option to call EasyBCD in the last step of the UI, is precisely to enable you to eliminate the (now unnecessary) 2nd menu which you were previously using, as well as allowing you to edit the names etc in the 1st menu.
The simplest step is just to set timeout(0) in the 2nd menu (if Vista was the default), and you'll never see again the 2nd option to use XP. (you could select XP at this stage but it would NOT have Vista hidden the way it is when selected from the HnS menu)
 
I like Terry's solution better. Should you need to get the computer working again without HnS in a dual-boot with XP/Vista all you would need to do is run HnS UI again to uninstall and set the timeout back to something besides 0 using EasyBCD.
 
If you want to re-add it do so without HnS installed. Than just make sure that the Vista entry is default and timeout is correct at EasyBCD -> Change Settings. Otherwise, it should still work correctly anyway.
 
OK, I wish I had read the above additions to the thread before i did what i did. I had HnS installed, but changed the default in Easy BCD to XP. with a 0 timeout. Now I cannot boot into anything, as when I tried to repair the startup, it just got rid of HnS and left me with a zero timeout BCD trying to boot into XP. All I get is that 'the Hal.dll file is missing or corrupt" and no boot. Is there a way to fix this with command prompt or something else?

saphire199
 
Go to command prompt from the Vista DVD:

bcdedit

Get the identifier ({xxxx-....) for Vista's entry. Than use:

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} default {xxx-...}
 
Yeah, I just followed Terry's advice. Using Vista HnS, removed XP entry from EasyBCD, set timeout to 0 and I'm good to go. Thanks again.

Saphire199
 
Love the app its great work but a couple of questions if i may. I have just installed windows 7 on what was formerly an xp/vista dual boot system, beforehand i uninstalled vista hns cleaned up a little with bcd 1.7.2 and clean installed windows 7 pro 64 bit on vistas former partition. All my boot files appear to be on C: (XP) as usual.

So what id like to know is can i use this app to hide windows 7 from xp?
Can i do so without having vista on my machine?
 
Hi Cy, welcome to NST.
Yes, W7 is just Vista II, to all intents and purposes.
Same bootmanager and loader, same problem with XP and system restore.
Just use HnS and mark W7 partition(s) as Vista.
 
Back
Top