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I have a system with Windows 7 and Windows XP, and today I have installed the Windows 8 Developer Preview into a spare partition (that I leave for a few months without any important data there). When booting from a bootable device and doing the installation, I format it so that it's a clean and fresh partition. The installing process finished, and now I have a boot screen with Windows 8 Developer Preview and Windows 7.

My Windows XP boot entry simply disappeared. So, I have used EasyBCD to modify the boot loader and reactivated the Windows XP boot entry from the system, and it displays Windows XP there. After I did that, I restarted my PC.

The only thing left is Windows 7 and my dear old Windows XP; as now Windows 8 Developer Preview disappeared from the boot menu. EasyBCD can't detect it anymore - a few times I logged into Windows 7 and tried to run it afterward. Please note that all versions are installed on separate partitions.

How do I get the Windows 8 Developer Preview boot menu back and get it to also list Windows 7 and Windows XP?

Peter Mortensen
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Edward
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5 Answers5

20

Get the Windows 8 Developer Preview boot menu back.

  1. Start from the Windows 8 Developer Preview installation medium.

  2. Optionally, choose your keyboard settings.

  3. Hit SHIFT+F10 to enter the command prompt.

  4. Execute bootrec /fixmbr to update the main boot record just to be sure, partitions will remain.

  5. Execute bootrec /fixboot to update the boot sector of the system partition.

  6. Execute bootrec /scanos to add known OSes to the boot configuration data.

Get it to list Windows XP.

  1. Execute bootrec /rebuildbcd, this will rebuild the boot configuration data.

  2. If that doesn't work, reboot and use bcdedit from Windows 8 Developer Preview like this:

    bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "Windows XP"

bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=X:

bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr

bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast

    Please note that you need to right click the Command Prompt tile, then click on advanced in the lower right corner and then click on Run As Administrator. Replace X: by your XP partition.

    This is native unlike EasyBCD, so the chance is higher that it would work more properly...

Good luck!

Tamara Wijsman
  • 57,881
1

Here is perfect solution to get back your Windows XP/7 when you install Windows 8.

Check this blog entry: How To Install & Dual Boot Windows 8 With Windows XP & Windows 7

  • Navigate to My Computer from system Explore or Desktop
  • Then at the top menu bar click on “System Properties”
  • On next windows select “Advanced System Settings”
  • It will popup you new windows ,from which you need to click on “Advance” tab then click setting for “Start-up & recovery ”
  • Now in default OS select “Earlier Version of Windows ” Now click on ok and restart your PC
  • Now you should have option to load windows XP prior to Windows 8 Start ,Enjoy all windows platform
slhck
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Saurabh Mukhekar
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  • 1
1

I had the problem of seeing the Windows 7 boot menu instead of the Windows 8 boot menu. I was able to boot into Windows 8, but I did not see the graphical Windows 8 boot loader.

I used the bcdboot command in an elevated command prompt to reload the Windows 8 bootloader files and now all is OK.

Example:

bcdboot c:\windows /s c:
Peter Mortensen
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spinfowars
  • 11
-2

To display Windows XP entry in Windows 8 Developer Preview boot menu you have just to enable 'DisplayBootMenu' element in {bootmgr}. A complete Windows BCD Editor can be downlaoded here - Visual BCD Editor.

After installing and starting the tool it displays the {bootmgr} elements by default. Look if 'DisplayBootMenu' element is present. If not click on 'New' button and create it selecting 'Boot Manager' and 'DisplayBootMenu' in the comboboxes. Confirm. Set the value of 'DisplayBootMenu' to true.

This will cause the boot menu to be displayed in the normal Windows 7 style. To bring back the 'Metro' style look delete element 'DisplayBootMenu'.

Without an editor, open the command prompt and paste:

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} DisplayBootMenu true
slhck
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snayob
  • 4,500
-2

If you want to list both Windows (Windows XP And Windows 8) follow these steps:

  1. Download EasyBCD.
  2. Install it and open it. It's front page gives all information of your sequence of loading OSs.
  3. Now edit as required.
Diogo
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Arslan Ahmed Jimmy
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