Got Easy BCD working on Windows 8 with Windows 7 for second choice but .....

I set my UEFI so that it booted to the Windows 8 Release Preview disk and installed Easy BCD on the Windows 8 disk and made an entry for Windows 7.

It works and I get the blue graphical screen with the choice for Widows 8 or Windows 7 but ... it is slow slow slow.

If i choose Windows 8 it immediately brings up the lock screen. It seems to have completely loaded Windows 8 before it gives me the boot choice screen, because the lock screen pops right up.

If I choose Windows 7 it completely reboots through the UEFI before launching Windows 7.
I have to wait for it to go through the UEFI boot process a second time before getting into Windows 7.

It is faster to just reboot and hit the F8 key and bring up the UEFI boot menu and choose the disk I want to boot from.

That doesn't seem right.

Did I do something wrong?
 
I understand why Windows 8 boots faster than Windows 7.

The problem ( in my mind ) is the way Easy BCD works. Windows 8 is completely loaded and ready to go before you get the graphical boot choice screen.
I presume Easy BCD is causing this screen since the additional entry for Windows 7 made in Easy BCD is there.
Before installing Easy BCD it just booted right to Windows 8 lock screen if it was set to be the boot drive in the UEFI.

But then ... but then ... if I choose Windows 7 is has to completely reboot.

I can understand that because it has already loaded the Windows 8 operating system by default.

I had expected Easy BCD to take over BEFORE Windows 8 loaded and give you the choice of WHICH O/S to load in the first place.

Basically to do the same thing as hitting the F8 key while it is booting and getting the UEFI menu asking which drive ( O/S ) I want to boot from, only without having to watch carefully and hit F8 at the right time.

I thought if I had Easy BCD installed I could start the computer in the morning, go to the kitchen and get my coffee and come back to find a menu asking which one to boot and proceed from there.

Well, it < sorta > works. But if I choose Windows 7 I have to wait for it to completely boot all over again.

Since I now have both Windows 8 and Windows7 on separate SSD drives, the UEFI portion of the reboot takes the longest.

Just minor aggravation :smile:

Hopefully the fine folks who make Easy BCD can find a way to fix this so it works the right way ( MY way ) :smile:
 
That's the point. It is already booted into W8 before you get the choice because W8 doesn't really shutdown. It has a hibernation-like state which is responsible for the ultra rapid startup. It's not really a standard boot using the BCD from cold start.
If however you choose something other than W8, which doesn't use the newly-redesigned W8 pseudo-boot logic, then it has to start the boot process over from a real cold start.
It's nothing to do with EasyBCD.
If you dual boot W8 onto an existing W7 sans EasyBCD, the automatic dual-boot which the W8 install will do for you, will give you the same situation.
W8 has not been designed to be convenient to Desktop PC users. MS has decided the PC is dead. Dinosaurs like you and me have been eliminated from any design consideration.
The future is in small-screened mobile touch devices with a single ubiquitous OS onboard.
Any attempt to use the OS in any other way has been made deliberately unwieldy in the hope that we'll all just knuckle-under and do as we're told.
 
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Once Windows 8 RTM is on the shelves I will switch completely over to it.

Until then I run both systems with Windows 7 as primary and I just play around in Windows 8 to get my feet wet and understand what is coming up.

I'm also very interested in the new Windows tablets. I have an original Xoom tablet I got the day they came out and it works pretty well.
I can even run my desktop computer in either Windows 7 or Windows 8 mode from my easy chair in the living room while watching tv at night.
Pretty much like I was sitting in front of this machine except I don't have a keyboard for the Xoom.

The Windows tablet with keyboard would interface even better I presume.

There is probably one of those tablets in the future of this house.

One thing there will NEVER be here --- an APPLE anything.

Well ... no ... applie pies are allowed :smile:
 
Sorry, I exclude you from the roll of Dinosaurs then.
I shan't be switching to W8 at RTM or any other time short of W7 EOL.
Tried the DP which was OK because it could be hacked back to a default desktop, but they removed the code from the UP so it couldn't be done again, and instead of listening to their desktop users and giving the OS a simple mode-switch between desktop and tablet modes, they've gone the other way with each build and insisted we will use it that way regardless of whether the kit it's running on is suitable. The metro screen on a large vertical monitor with keyboard/mouse input is hopelessly less efficient in use, and the insistence on full-screening apps is like going back 30 years to pre-multi-tasking.
My monitor is not touch sensitive, and I'm not going to replace it. I can't bear sticky finger marks on the screen, and even if that didn't bother me, waving arms around to achieve what a twitch of a mouse can do is a crazy way to run anything.
If I owned a tablet or a smart phone, I might be more persuaded to standardize environments across all them all, but I have no use for either. My PC is a tool not a fashion statement, and like all my tools, I want it to be efficient and fit for purpose.
They may have tuned up the internals of W8 (or like the boot, done some sleight of hand to make it appear so), and I'll be sorry to miss out on those improvements, but all the while it's wrapped up in a GUI that slows down everything I do, I can't even consider switching from W7.
 
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