Boot Manager doesn't display on cold boot

Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2003
Posts
16,294
Got a weird one here.

Have a dual-boot set up with two Windows 11 OSes. This was working fine until yesterday.

Now, from a cold boot, it goes straight into my default OS without showing the boot manager menu at all.
Rebooting then shows the menu correctly.

This only started happening yesterday and, whilst not the end of the world, is annoying.
Anyone got any ideas why this might be?
 
Could be related to an update of some sort or corrupt system files perhaps. Could try running SFC to check for the latter.

Is quick boot enabled? Try disabling that as a test just to see what happens.
 
Hmm, good shout but nope, didn't help.

Like I said it's not the end of the world, just means if I want the secondary OS from a cold boot I have to let it boot to the primary OS login screen then immediately reboot.
 
Probably something changed with the boot configuration data, it's hard to go into specifics without knowing your exact setup but this should point you in the right direction...
You'll probably want to look at things like the timeout, the default entry, trying 'bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes'

e: FYI you don't actually need to use any bootmanager menus, like in the BIOS or the Windows one as you can set a default OS in your BIOS and create a shortcut to reboot into another OS, you only really need a boot menu if you want to choose on the fly.

E.g I have a shortcut with this command in the target box 'C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start bcdedit.exe /set {fwbootmgr} BOOTSEQUENCE {ccafcfa4-6e50-11ee-a77a-806e6f6e6963} && cmd /c start shutdown.exe /r /t 0' with the GUID (the part after BOOTSEQUENCE) taken from running 'Bcdedit /enum firmware'. That way i just have to click on the shortcut and it will reboot into the other OS and when i want to go back to my default OS i just reboot as that command only sets the boot order for the next reboot.

2nd e: To make that command clearer: 'C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start bcdedit.exe' open a command prompt and runs bcdedit.exe. '/set {fwbootmgr} BOOTSEQUENCE' tells bcdedit.exe to change the BIOS setting boot sequence the next time it reboots to a particular GUID. '&&' is the command to chain one command from another, so in other words run the first command and then run the second command. And the whole 'cmd /c start shutdown.exe /r /t 0' uses shutdown.exe to restart the PC right away. If you wanted to test it out you can do it all manually by opening a command prompt, get the GUID's of the various OS's by typing 'Bcdedit /enum firmware', then typing 'bcdedit.exe /set {fwbootmgr} BOOTSEQUENCE *insert desired GUID here including the {}*' and restarting manually.
 
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I think we might be talking at cross purposes. I tried the "...displaybootmenu yes" command and this enaled the BIOS "text mode" boot menu. I was never using this but rather the big blue screen with the boot options on it.

Anyway, I've managed to fix it but not entirely sure how. I think fast boot or some other kind of "restore" option may have been enabled in Windows such that, when I fully shutdown it was actually hibernating or otherwise saving the OS state so it can restore it quicker on next boot.
As such it just went straight into the last OS without prompting.

I've completely disabled hibernation and checked there's no other fast boot type options enabled and it seems to be ok now.
 
Bcdedit allows you to configure both the Windows and firmware bootloaders.

Either way that's not important now as you fixed it. :)
 
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