On 9/1/2023 9:02 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
Anyone doing this? I got the free Win11 update so
that I can test my software. I've always used BootIt
for easy multibooting, but I'm not really familiar with
BCD. With XP I just had to make sure boot.ini was
pointing to the right partition and BootIt would figure
out the rest.
At this point I got Win11 booting OK by taking out BootIt,
but it doesn't seem to see the Win10 disk image that
I put back (next to the Win11 partition) after the update.
I have exactly that. For convenience in looking at W10/W11 issues,
my daily driver boot disk has W11HOME and W10Pro .
I may have had to use this at some point. It seemed to work
better in the past. The boot menu now, needs the occasional
fixup.
bcdboot c:\Windows
bcdboot e:\Windows
If the BCD file (for boot menu -- a registry file inside)
only has the one boot entry, you can use a command like
that to add the second OS. So if E: was missing, you could
use the second command to add E: to the menu.
bcdedit # Dump current file, see one boot entry is present.
# This prints a text summary on the screen, not the binary inside.
# If you just install W11, then the menu probably has W11 and the
# W10 entry has gone missing.
bcdboot e:\Windows # Add second OS (missing in action after second install)
# While the second OS install is supposed to pick up both OSes when
# it builds a menu, more often than not, it screws up.
bcdedit # Verify to your satisfaction, that there are two boot entries.
The "regular" menu, uses the big square icons for the OS selection. You
will see this for the first time, when the two OSes need a choice-point for selection.
If you do this, it puts a WinXP era "text on black screen" boot menu.
You can do this any time, like right now.
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu True
Now, while you might laugh at the concept of a text boot screen, consider this.
The tile-based boot menu, will do a "double-reboot" if you select the non-default OS.
This is *very* annoying. The text boot screen, does not do that. Whether you select
the W10 OS or the W11 OS, it only executes the boot sequence the one time.
This assumes minimal cleverness on your part. If you are using "fast start" or if you're using BitLocker encryption, what the Tile Menu is doing, is
probably a correct technical approach. However, in uncomplicated startup situations, it does not have the conditional logic to "not do stupid stuff". Which annoys me to no end. That is why my DisplayBootMenu is True.
*******
bcdboot has one other option, but this may be applicable in cases where
you're using MSDOS partitioning, instead of GPT partitioning.
bcdboot c:\Windows /s C:
What that does, is copy some boot files to the C: drive.
On a GPT partitioned disk, the first partition is EFI System Partition
or ESP, and it would be the location of the boot files. And it does not
have a drive letter. Consequently, on a GPT disk, I just use this
bcdboot c:\Windows
for want of a better solution.
This is my GPT-partitioned boot drive on this machine.
[Picture]
https://i.postimg.cc/x14RdRn0/dual-boot-daily-driver.gif
*******
On your Win10 partition, use this to lock the partition to
W10 22H2
so the W11 upgrade won't come in.
https://www.grc.com/incontrol.htm
You can boot W11 install media (from the popup boot menu in the BIOS),
in a matching mode to your current setup (UEFI boot for a GPT install),
and install W11 next to W10 like in my disk layout in the picture.
When doing the install, select "Custom" so you have control
of the layout and make an OS size you like. The "disk shrink"
can only shrink a partition in Disk Management, to 50%,
so if you didn't use "Custom" and just let the automation
do it, the new OS partition might be too large to easily shrink later.
*******
Do a full disk backup with Macrium, before starting this sequence.
If you're new to Dual Booting, you should always drive with the
training wheels on. It may take more than one attempt to get
things exactly as you want them. A restore from a Macrium backup
is a lot better than other options (like waiting for a failed
install to "unroll").
My setup, is a clone from a smaller drive to a larger drive, which
is why it has all that space on the end. With my setups, you never know
how many manipulations and experiments they've been through :-)
And occasionally I've lost an entire drive to an experiment -- that
is why I'm telling you about backups. Experience.
Paul
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