EasyBCD offers a number of more-advanced features for power users. Be careful when modifying these options, as they may result in degraded PC performance or a non-booting PC. Make sure to always back up your EasyBCD settings before trying out new options.
Contents
Advanced options are set on a per-entry basis, and can be viewed or modified on the “Advanced Settings” page in EasyBCD. These options are split into 3 sections, based on how advanced the changes you’d like to make are:
Basic Options
EasyBCD advanced settings screen – basic tab
These are the basic settings that one might be expected to modify on a routine basis for newly-added entries.
Renaming an Entry
As an alternative to renaming an entry the normal way, you can enter a new name here in the first textbox to rename a menu listing.
Setting the Locale
The bootloader language can be specified here. This is the text that is shown on the animated boot screen and the detailed text visible on the Advanced Boot Options dialog. Select the language you’d like to use from the drop-down and save changes for the effect to take.
EasyBCD changing entry language
Changing the Drive Letter
This option should be used with extreme caution, as it may render your entry non-working. You can use this to change the partition that this entry will be booted from. You should NOT change this option for Windows XP, Windows 9x, or Linux entries, where this is the drive letter of the EasyBCD configuration file and not the drive letter of the actual drive you’re booting into.
Advanced Options
EasyBCD advanced settings – advanced tab
The settings here cover more advanced features governing the behavior of the system after it boots. Choosing incorrect values here may result in degraded system performance and stability.
Safe Mode
This option can be used to create a Safe Mode entry that will launch Windows in the Safe Mode configuration of your choosing. This is an alternative to having to press F8 at boot time to view the Advanced Boot Options menu.
There are a few different options that may selected here:
- Normal: the default option
- Safe Mode: standard safe mode
- Safe Mode w/ Networking: safe mode with networking enabled, useful for downloading repair tools online
- Command Line/Alternative Shell: this option launches safe mode with the command line instead of Windows Explorer
- Basic VGA: runs Windows in basic VGA mode, usually only used when graphics drivers have been corrupted
- Active Directory Repair: loads a Windows Server 2008 Active Directory server in repair mode.
PAE Support
The PAE option determines whether Physical Address Extension will be either automatically determined, forced on, or forced off. PAE is used to extend the virtual memory for applications past the 32-bit addressing mode.
NoExecute
The NoExecute option (also known as DEP or Data Execution Prevention) is a hardware security feature that may prevent rogue code from being launched due to buffer overrun errors and the like.
- OptIn: On for certain applications (whitelist)
- OptOut: Off for certain applications (blacklist)
- Always On: DEP is enabled for all applications
- Always Off: DEP is disabled for all applications
Allow installation of unsigned drivers
This option attempts to enable the installation of unsigned drivers on Windows Vista/7 64-bit editions. It’s highly not recommended to enable this unless you’re sure you want to install 3rd party drivers that haven’t been authenticated by Microsoft/Verisign. This won’t work with boot-time kernel drivers, for which there is no known workaround on Windows Vista and up at this time.
Developer Options
EasyBCD advanced settings screen – developer tab
These options may come in handy for both user-mode and kernel-mode developers alike, and are probably useless for most end users.
Run Windows in Kernel-Debug Mode
Used to enable attaching of a debugger to the Windows kernel for driver development
Run in SOS mode
Windows will show detailed startup progress instead of the animated boot logo. Used to see drivers as they are loaded.
Deduct xx MB from physical memory
Limits the memory available to Windows to a certain amount. Used to test behavior in low-memory environments, or to work around buggy applications.
Limit Windows to xx CPUs
On multi-core machines (physical and virtual, alike), this option is used to restrict Windows to a certain number of cores.