On Boot Up - Now Asked to Pick One of 2 XP Systems Installed

[nasttcar]

Upon bootup, WinXP recognizes there is another copy of XP installed on another drive. I do not want that one to load. I want the first one in the list to load.

How do I get the computer to do this without any interaction from me?

 

[jackschmittusa]

Boot.ini file is key. Delete the 2nd entry if you do not want it.

 

[Slikkster]

I don't know that he necessarily wants to delete that entry. Seems like he wants XP to automatically boot into one particular XP install vs. the other.

Here's how:

Right-click (all other clicks mentioned will be left clicks) on the My Computer icon on the desktop. Now, when the menu comes up, click on Properties. You'll see the System Properties box come up. Click on Advanced. Now you'll see the Startup and Recovery box on the screen.

At the top of that box it says System Startup. Under that it will say Default operating system:

The install of XP that's currently listed in that box is the one your pc is now set to boot to automatically (after the countdown clock runs down when you first start windows).

*** If you need to change it to your other XP install, click the down arrow next to the entry that that's in the white box. You'll see the other XP install listed. Chances are they have the same name, but it will be the other install. If you click on that entry, it will replace the one currently in the Default Operating System box.

If you want it to boot faster than the default 30 seconds, click the arrow next to Time to display list of operating systems. I set mine at 8 seconds, which is enough time for me to make a change in the boot OS I want to use if I need to, but much less than the slooooow 30 second timer.

Tip: You can edit the names shown in the Default operating system" boxes. Anything in between the quotation marks can be edited so it makes it easier to distinguish between one from another. How?

You'll see a listing labeled "To edit the startup options file manually, Click Edit." Click the edit button. You'll see a text box appear. That's your "boot.ini" file; the file that XP uses to determine which OS to boot to and with what parameters, etc. You'll see your two versions of XP listed om tje "[operating systems]" section.

Without changing ANY other parameters on the lines, edit the text in between the quotes for one or both XP listings.

For example, it will probably say something like:

multi(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows="Microsoft Windows Professional" (or Home Edition) with other parameters after the "Microsoft Windows ..." entry. Anything in between those quotes ("Microsoft Windows Professional") can be changed to whatever text you want. You could say "My Crummy XP!" or whatever; makes no difference. This is what you will see on the boot menu when you boot up. It makes it easier to distinguish between two different versions of XP since Windows will default to giving each the same name.