Boot.ini....1 more question

[+Jared]

Ok now that I was able to find and open my boot.ini file,
I made the changes that I wanted to and it wont let me
save it. It is not a read only file in its properties. I
used wordpad to open it, added the line and then went to
exit. It said all formating will be lost...click ok, do I
want to save...click yes..."access to C:/ denied". What
would cause this? Thanks

 

[Dave Patrick]

Try this from a command prompt;
edit C:\boot.ini
(or use notepad. I wouldn't recommend using word or wordpad)

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
Microsoft Certified Professional [Windows 2000]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


:
| Ok now that I was able to find and open my boot.ini file,
| I made the changes that I wanted to and it wont let me
| save it. It is not a read only file in its properties. I
| used wordpad to open it, added the line and then went to
| exit. It said all formating will be lost...click ok, do I
| want to save...click yes..."access to C:/ denied". What
| would cause this? Thanks

 

[SaltPeter]

Ok now that I was able to find and open my boot.ini file,
I made the changes that I wanted to and it wont let me
save it. It is not a read only file in its properties. I
used wordpad to open it, added the line and then went to
exit. It said all formating will be lost...click ok, do I
want to save...click yes..."access to C:/ denied". What
would cause this? Thanks

You should be thankfull that it didn't let you save it in Worpad. As already
mentioned, use edit or notepad to modify it. Add a shortcut to Notepad in
your Sendto folder for quick access via context menu.

To understand why saving with Wordpad is dangerous for system ASCII based
text files, Save a Wordpad document with some text and open the resulting
document with notepad.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

That's because Wordpad by default saves in Word .doc format. You can
force Wordpad to save as ascii text but why bother? Use Notepad instead,
that's all it does.

Steve

 

[Gary Smith]

Ok now that I was able to find and open my boot.ini file,
I made the changes that I wanted to and it wont let me
save it. It is not a read only file in its properties. I
used wordpad to open it, added the line and then went to
exit. It said all formating will be lost...click ok, do I
want to save...click yes..."access to C:/ denied". What
would cause this? Thanks

As the other respondents said, use Notepad instead of Wordpad to avoid
accidently garbaging the file.

Unless you changed it, boot.ini *is* read-only, and also has the system
and hidden attributes. In order to edit the file and save the updated
version you have to remove all three attributes. To do this, open a
command prompt and type "attrib -r -s -h C:\boot.ini". Save a copt of the
file before tinkering with it. After saving the updated version, again
open a command prompt and type "attrib +r +s +h C:\boot.ini".

 

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

As the other respondents said, use Notepad instead of Wordpad to avoid
accidently garbaging the file.

Unless you changed it, boot.ini *is* read-only, and also has the system
and hidden attributes. In order to edit the file and save the updated
version you have to remove all three attributes. To do this, open a
command prompt and type "attrib -r -s -h C:\boot.ini". Save a copt of the
file before tinkering with it. After saving the updated version, again
open a command prompt and type "attrib +r +s +h C:\boot.ini".

FYI, only NT4 used the system, hidden and read only attributes on the
boot.ini. If the system was upgraded, the attributes remain, but on a
clean install of W2K or higher, the attributes are not turned on.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Ricardo, FYI on all my versions of 2000 and XP the attributes of boot.ini
are HSA

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
Microsoft Certified Professional [Windows 2000]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


:
| > Unless you changed it, boot.ini *is* read-only, and also has the system
| > and hidden attributes. In order to edit the file and save the updated
| > version you have to remove all three attributes. To do this, open a
| > command prompt and type "attrib -r -s -h C:\boot.ini". Save a copt of
the
| > file before tinkering with it. After saving the updated version, again
| > open a command prompt and type "attrib +r +s +h C:\boot.ini".
| >
| > --
| > Gary L. Smith (e-mail address removed)
| > Columbus, Ohio
|
| FYI, only NT4 used the system, hidden and read only attributes on the
| boot.ini. If the system was upgraded, the attributes remain, but on a
| clean install of W2K or higher, the attributes are not turned on.
| --
| Ricardo M. Urbano
| Microsoft Windows 2000/NT MVP

 

[Warren C. E. Austin]

Ricardo, FYI on all my versions of 2000 and XP the attributes of boot.ini
are HSA

It would appear that Systems will function either way under W2K; I've had instances where I've forgotten to restore the attributes after editing the file and the machine(s) booted with no problems.

Warren C. E. Austin

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Same here, however logged in with admin equiv rights I can edit and save
boot.ini (and other HS even Ro files) without resetting attribs.

Steve

 

[Dave Patrick]

Not a problem. The issue was with regards to what is default.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
Microsoft Certified Professional [Windows 2000]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


:
| It would appear that Systems will function either way under W2K; I've had
instances where I've forgotten to restore the attributes after editing the
file and the machine(s) booted with no problems.
|
| Warren C. E. Austin
|

 

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

Ricardo, FYI on all my versions of 2000 and XP the attributes of boot.ini
are HSA

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
Microsoft Certified Professional [Windows 2000]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| > Unless you changed it, boot.ini *is* read-only, and also has the system
| > and hidden attributes. In order to edit the file and save the updated
| > version you have to remove all three attributes. To do this, open a
| > command prompt and type "attrib -r -s -h C:\boot.ini". Save a copt of
the
| > file before tinkering with it. After saving the updated version, again
| > open a command prompt and type "attrib +r +s +h C:\boot.ini".
| >
| > --
| > Gary L. Smith (e-mail address removed)
| > Columbus, Ohio
|
| FYI, only NT4 used the system, hidden and read only attributes on the
| boot.ini. If the system was upgraded, the attributes remain, but on a
| clean install of W2K or higher, the attributes are not turned on.
| --
| Ricardo M. Urbano
| Microsoft Windows 2000/NT MVP

Hey, Dave! Yeah, we had this discussion once a WHILE back. Maybe it's
only the R attribute that's not default in W2K and XP. I can't remember
anymore and it's really not all that important. But I do know that NT4
will restore the attributes to their defaults at reboot and the higher
version OS's don't.

I just checked a W2K server that someone built for me from scratch and
the S and H attributes are on, but not R.

I am a little surprised, however, by Steve's assertion that he can save
changes to RSH files in the gui. I just trying saving changes to my
boot.ini in W2K, which is SHR, and notepad refused. Maybe it's up to
the app.

The entire matter is academic anyway and probably only of interest as a
curiousity.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Every 2K/XP machine I've worked on shows boot.ini as H only, not R.

Steve

 

[Gary Smith]

FYI, only NT4 used the system, hidden and read only attributes on the
boot.ini. If the system was upgraded, the attributes remain, but on a
clean install of W2K or higher, the attributes are not turned on.

This was not true of my system, which was a clean dual-boot install onto a
drive containing only DOS 6.22. Perhaps the dual-boot situation also
leads to the atttributes being set, but so many people have difficulty
locating boot.ini that I think it's being hidden must be pretty common.

 

[Gary Smith]

Every 2K/XP machine I've worked on shows boot.ini as H only, not R.

I just checked my work mchine, where I know that boot.ini has never been
tinkered with since it was installed, and the attributes there are HS.
When H and S are set but R is not, the file can be edited and saved with
Notepad. I must admit that I didn't expect that.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Should be normal and expected (HS) but the OS has no requirement as far as
the attributes are concerned. The 'A' bit gets toggled on and off at
different times by the OS and or your AV

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


:
| I just checked my work mchine, where I know that boot.ini has never been
| tinkered with since it was installed, and the attributes there are HS.
| When H and S are set but R is not, the file can be edited and saved with
| Notepad. I must admit that I didn't expect that.
|
| --
| Gary L. Smith (e-mail address removed)
| Columbus, Ohio

 

[William W. Plummer]

Should be normal and expected (HS) but the OS has no requirement as far as
the attributes are concerned. The 'A' bit gets toggled on and off at
different times by the OS and or your AV

That's right. The RHS and A bits are just for bookkeeping. You can set
them anyway you want without preventing your system from booting. Use the
"attrib" command in CMD to fiddle with them.

But there is a better way to experiment. Format a floppy with your OS
(i.e., don't use an old DOS or Win9x disk). Copy ntldr, ntdetect.exe and
boot.ini to the floppy. If you boot your system with that floppy in A:, it
should come up just fine. Recall that boot.ini simply tells where to find
the operating system program (ntoskrnl.exe). Now, you can edit the boot.ini
on the floppy and try new settings without risk.