Anyone figure out BootMgr/bcdedit?

[SUOrangeman]

So, I've read a little buzz about BootMgr and Vista, given the quest to run XP on the new Intel Macs. For anyone who's missed it, the Intel Macs use EFI, which is the follow-on technology to BIOS that we've known for so long.

Anyhow, Vista completely nixes the NTLDR and C:\boot.ini paradigm with the EFI-compatible BootMgr. Sure, there are claims that this is more secure and potentially more powerful. Unfortunately, no one seems to understand BootMgr and bcdedit, it's editing tool, to do all of the things that we used to be able to do with NTLDR and C:\boot.ini.

Of particular interest to me is using BootMgr to boot non-MS operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD, etc.). Does anyone out there have a clue?

-SUO

 

[scottws]

I'm sure people will figure it out. I mean back in the day it was all autoexec.bat and config.sys editing and now that stuff isn't really tweaked anymore and people learned the boot.ini. Same will happen with this.

 

[gsellis]

There are some new public forums for Vista in the MSNews newsreader area. It will get some coverage there. I have used it once to reset my main boot to XP with /? as my reference. I can't load the last CTP because of missing raid controller drivers (Intel and Promise). So, had to reset the boot order using the DVD boot to get to a console.