Can you enable the boot menu in XP?

[Dan]

I know with 98SE you can go into the msconfig and enable the start menu
to appear each time --- is this possible to configure the start menu to
appear each time with XP Pro. as well?

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I know with 98SE you can go into the msconfig and enable the start menu
to appear each time --- is this possible to configure the start menu to
appear each time with XP Pro. as well?

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

 

[Dan]

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

I want a start menu to appear and be able to give me all the options of
boot up without having to press F8 at the right time to get to this
menu. I want to choose each time whether to boot up normally, in safe
mode, last good configuration, etc.

 

[q_q_anonymous]

I want a start menu to appear and be able to give me all the options of
boot up without having to press F8 at the right time to get to this
menu. I want to choose each time whether to boot up normally, in safe
mode, last good configuration, etc.

I don't know. BTW, with windows 98, was it bootmenu=1 in msdos.sys that
did that?

You could get the boot.ini menu up, and that can offer safe mode and
recovery console and (some?) things that the F8 menu can't. Like
booting win xp off different partitions.

start..run..msconfig..boot.ini <-- see that timeout=30 or non zero.
So the menu stays up for e.g. 30 seconds.
You may need 2+ options in the menu for it to appear and stay up.

boot.ini can be editted through win xp's control panel, where it opens
in notepad. Or it can just be editted in notepad start..run..notepad
<ENTER>
But if the latter, you certainly have to know how to take a file off
read only and put it back as read only.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I want a start menu to appear and be able to give me all the options of
boot up without having to press F8 at the right time to get to this menu. I want to choose each time whether to boot up normally, in safe mode, last good configuration, etc.

There is no option to simulate the [F8] key at startup. Again, create your
boot menu by modifying the "boot.ini" file. See also this article that
applies to WinXP as well:

"Boot Menu Is Not Displayed and Timeout Value Is Not Used"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=242443

 

[Dan]

I don't know. BTW, with windows 98, was it bootmenu=1 in msdos.sys that
did that?

You could get the boot.ini menu up, and that can offer safe mode and
recovery console and (some?) things that the F8 menu can't. Like
booting win xp off different partitions.

start..run..msconfig..boot.ini <-- see that timeout=30 or non zero.
So the menu stays up for e.g. 30 seconds.
You may need 2+ options in the menu for it to appear and stay up.

boot.ini can be editted through win xp's control panel, where it opens
in notepad. Or it can just be editted in notepad start..run..notepad
<ENTER>
But if the latter, you certainly have to know how to take a file off
read only and put it back as read only.

In 98SE, you run msconfig and then click the advanced button in the
general tab. Next you check the enable start up menu and then okay and
okay. You will have to restart your computer and a menu will come up
with 6 options. You can boot normally, logged (recorded boot), safe
mode, command prompt, etc. I would like this start up menu to be
enabled with XP Pro. also since I dual-boot with 98SE and XP Pro.

 

[Dan]

I want a start menu to appear and be able to give me all the options of
boot up without having to press F8 at the right time to get to this menu. I want to choose each time whether to boot up normally, in safe mode, last good configuration, etc.

There is no option to simulate the [F8] key at startup. Again, create your
boot menu by modifying the "boot.ini" file. See also this article that
applies to WinXP as well:

"Boot Menu Is Not Displayed and Timeout Value Is Not Used"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=242443

Yeah, the article does not apply and it is too bad that you cannot
simulate the [F8} key at startup since the boot process goes so quickly
that you have to hit the [F8} key at exactly the right time in order for
the menu to appear. I hope Microsoft adds this functionality to XP
Service Pack 3. (The functionality of having a start up menu with XP
Pro.) Imagine, little old 98SE (produced in 1999) having this very
useful function in my opinion that is not offered in XP Pro.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Yeah, the article does not apply

The article gives you the clue how to obtain a boot menu.

and it is too bad that you cannot simulate the [F8} key at startup
since the boot process goes so quickly that you have to hit the [F8}
key at exactly the right time in order for the menu to appear.

There are workarounds. If you do not want to edit the "Boot.ini" file
according to that article, there is another way (quick-and-dirty):
Install the recovery console in order to obtain a boot menu at startup.
"How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307654

After installing, the boot menu appears and you may set the timeout
under Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Settings. This allows for
extra time to hit the [F8] key.

 

[Dan]

Yeah, the article does not apply

The article gives you the clue how to obtain a boot menu.

and it is too bad that you cannot simulate the [F8} key at startup
since the boot process goes so quickly that you have to hit the [F8}
key at exactly the right time in order for the menu to appear.

There are workarounds. If you do not want to edit the "Boot.ini" file
according to that article, there is another way (quick-and-dirty):
Install the recovery console in order to obtain a boot menu at startup.
"How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307654

After installing, the boot menu appears and you may set the timeout
under Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Settings. This allows for
extra time to hit the [F8] key.

Thanks for the article. I still wonder why it was so easy to have the
start menu enabled in 98SE and why XP Pro. makes it more complicated. I
will definitely consider using the tips in this article to fine tune XP.
Do you know by any chance why Microsoft changed this feature because
it was so nice to have the start up menu and say yes I want to start in
normal mode or safe mode or logging enabled mode or command prompt mode
or etc. I edited the title to make it clearer that I meant the way in
starting up XP rather than something else.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

Thanks for the article. I still wonder why it was so easy to have the
start menu enabled in 98SE and why XP Pro. makes it more complicated.
I will definitely consider using the tips in this article to fine tune
XP. Do you know by any chance why Microsoft changed this feature
because it was so nice to have the start up menu and say yes I want to
start in normal mode or safe mode or logging enabled mode or command
prompt mode or etc.

Well, this knows the developer only. There were frequent reports under
Win9x that neither [Ctrl] nor [F8] was working in order to invoke that
start menu. This may or may not be the reason to implement the feature
setting that start menu as default. Anyway, I still have an old Win98SE
system around, running more than stable. Over the years, I did not use
that start menu too often - actually in cases of emergency only. There-
fore, I do not miss that feature at all since 99.999% of all cases do
not require any attention during startup.

 

[mhc]

I want a start menu to appear and be able to give me all the options of
boot up without having to press F8 at the right time to get to this
menu. I want to choose each time whether to boot up normally, in safe
mode, last good configuration, etc.

People have mentioned the "timeout" setting in BOOT.INI. There is an
undocumented setting which may help you...this line:

timeout=-1

in BOOT.INI will disable the timeout and force the user to select from
the boot menu before proceeding. You will need to manually edit your
BOOT.INI file to use the -1 value. Windows XP has a bug in the System
Properties applet in Control Panel which will not allow you to set
"timeout" to -1 in the Startup and Recovery section. In addition, once
you set the value to -1, the applet will pop up an error message when
entering the Startup and Recovery section and will reset "timeout" to
zero! So be careful...if you change any other settings in that section,
make sure to edit BOOT.INI afterwards to reset "timeout" to -1.

mhc

 

[q_q_anonymous]

"Boot Menu Is Not Displayed and Timeout Value Is Not Used"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=242443
Yeah, the article does not apply

The article gives you the clue how to obtain a boot menu.

and it is too bad that you cannot simulate the [F8} key at startup
since the boot process goes so quickly that you have to hit the [F8}
key at exactly the right time in order for the menu to appear.

There are workarounds. If you do not want to edit the "Boot.ini" file
according to that article, there is another way (quick-and-dirty):
Install the recovery console in order to obtain a boot menu at startup.
"How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307654

After installing, the boot menu appears and you may set the timeout
under Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Settings. This allows for
extra time to hit the [F8] key.

Thanks for the article. I still wonder why it was so easy to have the
start menu enabled in 98SE and why XP Pro. makes it more complicated. I
will definitely consider using the tips in this article to fine tune XP.
Do you know by any chance why Microsoft changed this feature because
it was so nice to have the start up menu and say yes I want to start in
normal mode or safe mode or logging enabled mode or command prompt mode
or etc. I edited the title to make it clearer that I meant the way in
starting up XP rather than something else.

I think because in windows 98, what you did in the GUI, probably had
the effect of setting
bootmenu=1 in msdos.sys

windows xp does not use msdos.sys. So they forgot about it. Look up
msdos.sys switches, there are loads. turning off scandisk had to
change, they remembered that.
They moved the option to boot.ini and gave it a similar name
They didn't move all the options in msdos.sys into boot.ini though.

bootsafe=0 in msdos.sys is /safeboot in boot.ini(see msconfig in win
xp), Lots of silly amendments as they moved things. And they didn't
move everything
msdos.sys had bootscan=0 they didn't move that into boot.ini it'd
have let you prevent chkdsk from starting! Looking at kellys korner xp
tweaks (the table) you see about that chkdsk issue.

 

[q_q_anonymous]

"Boot Menu Is Not Displayed and Timeout Value Is Not Used"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=242443
Yeah, the article does not apply

The article gives you the clue how to obtain a boot menu.

and it is too bad that you cannot simulate the [F8} key at startup
since the boot process goes so quickly that you have to hit the [F8}
key at exactly the right time in order for the menu to appear.

There are workarounds. If you do not want to edit the "Boot.ini" file
according to that article, there is another way (quick-and-dirty):
Install the recovery console in order to obtain a boot menu at startup.
"How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307654

After installing, the boot menu appears and you may set the timeout
under Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Settings. This allows for
extra time to hit the [F8] key.

Thanks for the article. I still wonder why it was so easy to have the
start menu enabled in 98SE and why XP Pro. makes it more complicated. I
will definitely consider using the tips in this article to fine tune XP.
Do you know by any chance why Microsoft changed this feature because
it was so nice to have the start up menu and say yes I want to start in
normal mode or safe mode or logging enabled mode or command prompt mode
or etc. I edited the title to make it clearer that I meant the way in
starting up XP rather than something else.

I think because in windows 98, what you did in the GUI, probably had
the effect of setting
bootmenu=1 in msdos.sys

windows xp does not use msdos.sys. So they forgot about it. Look up
msdos.sys switches, there are loads. turning off scandisk had to
change, they remembered that.
They moved the option to boot.ini and gave it a similar name
They didn't move all the options in msdos.sys into boot.ini though.

bootsafe=0 in msdos.sys is /safeboot in boot.ini(see msconfig in win
xp), Lots of silly amendments as they moved things. And they didn't
move everything
msdos.sys had bootscan=0 they didn't move that into boot.ini it'd
have let you prevent chkdsk from starting! Looking at kellys korner xp
tweaks (the table) you see about that chkdsk issue.

err, I got a bit confused there over what was and what wasn't moved to
boot.ini


msdos.sys had some options nicluding
bootmenu
bootsafe
autoscan (not called bootscan!)
Logo

in boot.ini, the options in msdos.sys(left hand column) are now
(right hand column)
bootmenu <-- gone, not there
bootsafe <-- is there, is called /safeboot
autoscan <-- gone, not there.
logo <-- gone

I guess historically, the boot.ini options may have come first, if they
are all NT options. But I'm looking narrowly, at going from 98 to XP -
the differences.

msdos.sys had many other options too. boot.ini simply didn't include
all of those options.

Here are 2 links listing the options in msdos.sys, you see they are not
all in boot.ini
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118579/EN-US/
http://www.computerhope.com/msdossys.htm (googled msdos.sys autoscan
computerhope)

 

[Dan]

People have mentioned the "timeout" setting in BOOT.INI. There is an
undocumented setting which may help you...this line:

timeout=-1

in BOOT.INI will disable the timeout and force the user to select from
the boot menu before proceeding. You will need to manually edit your
BOOT.INI file to use the -1 value. Windows XP has a bug in the System
Properties applet in Control Panel which will not allow you to set
"timeout" to -1 in the Startup and Recovery section. In addition, once
you set the value to -1, the applet will pop up an error message when
entering the Startup and Recovery section and will reset "timeout" to
zero! So be careful...if you change any other settings in that section,
make sure to edit BOOT.INI afterwards to reset "timeout" to -1.

mhc

Thanks everyone for all of the comments. I really appreciate all the
input on this issue.

 

[Rock]

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

I want a start menu to appear and be able to give me all the options of
boot up without having to press F8 at the right time to get to this
menu. I want to choose each time whether to boot up normally, in
safe mode, last good configuration, etc.

There is no option to simulate the [F8] key at startup. Again, create
your
boot menu by modifying the "boot.ini" file. See also this article that
applies to WinXP as well:

"Boot Menu Is Not Displayed and Timeout Value Is Not Used"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=242443

Yeah, the article does not apply and it is too bad that you cannot
simulate the [F8} key at startup since the boot process goes so quickly
that you have to hit the [F8} key at exactly the right time in order for
the menu to appear. I hope Microsoft adds this functionality to XP
Service Pack 3. (The functionality of having a start up menu with XP
Pro.) Imagine, little old 98SE (produced in 1999) having this very
useful function in my opinion that is not offered in XP Pro.

The odds of it being added in SP3 are probably pretty small.