I've got UAC fully disabled. Was running 1.7.2 fine until somewhere I saw Guru mentioning that grub's syntax had changed. So I grabbed the 64th Beta build of 2.0 and it installed over 1.7.2 and indeed it did run for a short period of time.
The GUI worked fine at first... up until I decided to add a bunch of linux/grub records, selecting various disks and partitions in a sort-of rapid-fire session of record creation. I was testing a bunch of different methods to get Grub working. I didn't realize I had to choose the disk itself, not the partition where grub is physically located (at least the menu.lst file).
Now the GUI is stuck hidden somewhere and I can only bring it up after killing bcdedit.exe... but that only lasts so long. Eventually bcdedit relaunches and then freezes the GUI window again.
Fortunately, despite the crash and no-show GUI, the records seem to have been written to the MBR, which is how I found that using just the disk where grub was installed, not a specific partition, worked fine, even though the menu.lst is located on a specific partition.
I did experience a freeze on the GUI in 1.7.2 ...just not any vanishing acts like the beta has been tossing at me.
I've now reinstalled several times, and it seems it makes no difference. Is there a cleaner install than the standard method?
Otherwise maybe the BCD being read in is causing issues?
Anyway, the MBR now has about 5 erroneous grub-related entries that I need to clean up, I just can't any longer.
Addendum:
By the way, this is on a fresh install of win7.
I just enabled UAC once again. I set it on level one, then rebooted as prompted.
I restarted Diffic ..er, EasyBCD 2, and I did get the usual UAC prompt: "do you want to allow this program from an unknown publisher to make changes to your computer?"
After that, it was the same old shindig. No GUI, both process still running though.
I can only imagine it has issues with my now-crazy MBR entry-set. Since I can't edit it now, there's no seeming way to fix it either. Killing bcdedit at least brings up the GUI and lets me copy the overview (pressing any buttons relaunches bcdedit though, which as I said re-freezes the GUI window).
Sorry if this is ugly, but setting up linux really isn't intuitive
at all. If grub only supports selection of the disk, why list the partitions?
Anyway, I digress. Here's the overview:
There are a total of 9 entries listed in the bootloader.
Default: Windows 7
Timeout: 30 seconds.
EasyBCD Boot Device: D:\
Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Entry #2
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {04eac9f9-b416-11de-839c-fef433ef97f9}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Entry #3
Name: Ubuntu 9.10
BCD ID: {04eac9fa-b416-11de-839c-fef433ef97f9}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_grub.mbr
Entry #4
Name: Ubuntu (via Grub)
BCD ID: {04eac9fb-b416-11de-839c-fef433ef97f9}
Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Bootloader Path: \NST\NeoGrub.mbr
Entry #5
Name: Linux (Grub)
BCD ID: {04eac9fc-b416-11de-839c-fef433ef97f9}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_linux.mbr
Entry #6
Name: Linux (Grub C)
BCD ID: {04eac9fd-b416-11de-839c-fef433ef97f9}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_linux-7DA69BABF255895CBEF0228AE982D44F.mbr
Entry #7
Name: Linux (Grub D1)
BCD ID: {04eac9fe-b416-11de-839c-fef433ef97f9}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_linux-6BB95DC1C44A86688FA4CFC1A1E619F0.mbr
Entry #8
Name: Linux (Grub D1S1)
BCD ID: {04eac9ff-b416-11de-839c-fef433ef97f9}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_linux-AF09B58298AABD4CCD5ACD977EB4DE37.mbr
Entry #9
Name: Unnamed Entry
BCD ID: {04eaca00-b416-11de-839c-fef433ef97f9}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_linux-B3E37EB2F761307A5487B922D506D143.mbr
Addendum:
Also, something strange happened after installing the beta (vs what v1.7.2 did) which was installing the NST settings on the D:\ drive. Version 1 installed NST settings into C:\.
I also have no idea why this shows C:\ for both vista and win7 ...vista should be on D:\
Entry #7 is the one that works for Grub, in case you wondered...