I set my laptop to dual boot Vista and discovered a some interesting things when I was done:
- The new operating systems was the default, when I wanted the original operating systems to be the default
- I had 2 operating systems with the exact same description (Microsoft Windows Vista)
- The selection timeout was 30 seconds
- My old friends boot.ini and bootcfg are history!
In Vista, BCDEdit replaces bootcfg. I can list my operating systems simply by running BCDEdit in the shell:
C:\Users\Dave>bcdedit
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {default}
resumeobject {7caf94b7-f303-11db-8342-fd19a316638c}
displayorder {default}
{current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {default}
device partition=G:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=G:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {94cd4dd2-a14c-11dc-b2fb-d72bdf6fa59c}
nx OptIn
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {572bcd56-ffa7-11d9-aae0-0007e994107d}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {7caf94b7-f303-11db-8342-fd19a316638c}
nx OptIn
Because I booted the non default operating system, each operating system could be assigned a logical identifier (default, current). Had I booted the default operating system, then the one know as current above would have a GUID as an identifier.
To change the boot order:
bcdedit /default {current}
This doesn't change the order the operating systems are listed in, it simply sets the default operating system to boot.
To change the description of an operating system:
bcdedit /set {94cd4dd1-a14c-11dc-b2fb-d72bdf6fa59c} description "Vista with Virtual Server"
Finally, to bring the timeout down something acceptable for Type A people:
bcdedit /timeout 5
The TechNet page referenced above isn't much more than the basic help you get with "bcdedit /?". See the MSDN documentation at Boot Options for Driver Testing and Debugging for a tutorial.
This just in! I stumbled across a really detailed BCDEdit Reference document from Microsoft.