Windows 10 and Windows 7 multiboot fixes (no menu on cold boot & no GUI menu)

bigbadsteve

New Member
I spent the best part of today getting Windows 10 and Windows 7 multibooting working almost the way I wanted on one of my computers.

All the necessary steps to make the multiboot menu work were described somewhere on the NeoSmart website, but took me a lot of searching to find. I hope this post will save time for those having similar difficulties.

I'm not documenting here where to install the operating systems (OS's), or set up the basic multiboot menu in EasyBCD, because all that's well described elsewhere on this website. My problem was that although I'd entered and saved all the multiboot parameters in EasyBCD (run in Windows 10) correctly as per the 'how to' pages, the multiboot menu still didn't work properly.

The first problem - no multiboot menu on cold boot: Whenever I shut down the computer and cold booted, the multiboot menu would not be displayed. However, when I'd restart via the Windows' Start menu option, the multiboot menu would be displayed.

The answer to this problem was to turn off the Fast Start-up feature in Windows 10. I had just upgraded Windows 10 to version 1903, and I've read elsewhere that the upgrade itself turns on Fast Start-up, which might be true. Very similar Fast Start-up multiboot issues in Windows 8 & Windows 10 are described in this NeoSmart forums thread:
https://NeoSmart.net/forums/threads/windows-8-or-10-boot-problems-please-read-this-before-posting.12890/

Note that although the above webpage uses the term 'Fast boot', the correct term in Windows 10 is 'Fast Start-up'. (By the way if you type the term into the Control Panel search box it won't find the setting for you, thanks Microsoft, not!)

The symptoms mentioned on the above webpage are somewhat different to what I've described, but turning off Fast Start-up (aka Fast boot) as described there fixes the 'no menu on cold boot' issue.

I'd at first missed this setting, because it was greyed out on the Control Panel page (as described on the webpage above). But after clicking Change settings that are unavailable, as described in the link, it was clear that Fast Start-up was in fact turned on. So I unticked to turn it off, saved changes, and the first problem was fixed. (Hooray!)

The next problem - old style (Windows 7) multiboot menu. Though I'd ticked the Use Metro bootloader checkbox on EasyBCD's Edit tab and saved, the old style (Windows 7) text-only multiboot menu was the one being displayed on boot. I'm not picky about menu style, but don't like that menu because it displays a memory diagnostics option which doesn't work on my computer (and how often do you need to run memory diagnostics anyway!). I wanted a new-style Windows 10 multiboot menu instead.

The problem is described for Windows 8 on a NeoSmart blog page, and looks like it's pretty much unchanged in Windows 10:
https://NeoSmart.net/blog/2011/the-new-windows-8-bootloader/

You don't need to read all that page, it's just here for reference. It states the problem but doesn't give a solution.

Fortunately, there is a solution, posted in a NeoSmart forum thread some years ago:
https://NeoSmart.net/forums/threads/restoring-windows-8-graphical-style-boot-menu-on-multiboot-system.11639/

Here's my easy version of the fix:
  1. In Windows 10, back up multiboot menu settings via the EasyBCD's BCD Backup/Repair tab (in case something goes wrong).
  2. In EasyBCD's Edit Boot Menu tab, set up everything the way you want it, then Save Settings.
  3. Click the Useful Utilities button.
  4. Select EasyBCD Power Console.
  5. After the command line window is displayed, type: bcdboot C:\windows
Now check the fix worked, by first restarting the computer and testing the multiboot menu, then by shutting down and cold booting and testing the multiboot menu.

I found afterwards that making almost any change to the multiboot, e.g. changing boot menu order by any method, caused the menu to revert to old style on future boots. Should this happen, it can be fixed by repeating the numbered steps above. Once you get your multiboot menu working the best it can, it pays to leave it alone.

For unknown reasons, if I specified Windows 7 to be the Default OS, the fix would break. So, I settled for having Windows 10 as the Default, and set Count down from... to a large number, making booting to my non-preferred OS accidentally less likely.

I wanted Windows 7 ideally listed before Windows 10 in the boot menu, but it seems Windows 10 always wants to list the Default OS first. Whatever, you can't always get what you want. Multiboot menu substantially fixed!
 
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