In this article I will go over multiple-boot options on Windows 10 and how to use bcdedit commands for dual-booting as study material for my MCA.
Dual booting or multibooting allows your computer to boot multiple operations systems. Here are some keys to a successful dual-boot configuration:
- Plenty of disk space
- Windows 10 must be installed on a separate partition in order to dual-boot with other OS
- Install older OS before installing newer versions. If you wish to install Windows 7 it’s important to do that before Windows 10.
- Do not install Windows 10 on a compressed volume unless the volume was compressed using NTFS compression.
Once you have installed each OS, you can choose the OS that you will boot during the boot process. You will see a boot selection screen that asks you to choose which OS you want to boot.
The Boot Configuration Data store contains boot information parameters that were previously found in boot.ini in older versions of Windows. To edit these, use the bcdedit utility, which can be launched only from a command prompt. You can choose one of the following:
- Launch \windows\system32\cmd.exe
- open the Run command by pressing Windows Key + R then entering cmd
- Type cmd.exe in the search bar and press Enter
Once the CMD is open, type bcdedit to launch the utility.
- bcdedit /default {current}
This places the default OS at startup first item in the boot menu - bcdedit /set {current} description “Windows 7 (Partition 1)”
This makes the OS booted at startup the default entry in the boot menu:
