Is it possible to change Vista OS Boot order remotely and / or from XP?

[Martin]

Title says it all really - I've got a dual boot PC with Vista Beta 2 and XP
SP2, I can change the OS boot order from within Vista to default to
"Previous version of windows" and it then after a reboot starts XP but then
how do I remotely (PC is in basement actually!!) change it back to start
Vista - In the old days I would have been able to change the boot.ini
remotely without any trouble...

Or if it starts with Vista then is there an option to boot into Previous OS
only on next reboot but then revert back to Vista? Kinda like the "Run once"
key.

Cheers Martin

 

[Terje Alexander Barth]

Title says it all really - I've got a dual boot PC with Vista Beta 2 and XP
SP2, I can change the OS boot order from within Vista to default to
"Previous version of windows" and it then after a reboot starts XP but then
how do I remotely (PC is in basement actually!!) change it back to start
Vista - In the old days I would have been able to change the boot.ini
remotely without any trouble...

Or if it starts with Vista then is there an option to boot into Previous OS
only on next reboot but then revert back to Vista? Kinda like the "Run once"
key.

Cheers Martin

I have yet to see a tool that lets you edit the Vista Boot Manager
from outside Vista.. (Kinda unhelpfull that is, really)...

You might want to see if Vista has a Recovery Console that can be installed,
perhaps that has the tools required for such an endavour.

 

[John C. Iliff]

Yes, it is possible. Go to www.pro-networks.org and download/run
VistaBootPro. It's a freebie, and a great program. Lots of inputs from the
forums to help guide you on how to use the program. The program can be run
from within WinXP OR Vista!

John

 

[Roberto Baggio]

I have yet to see a tool that lets you edit the Vista Boot Manager
from outside Vista.. (Kinda unhelpfull that is, really)...

I have. It ships with Vista and it is called BCDEDIT. Runs on WinXP.

You'd probably use it with a command such as:
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} default ntldr

 

[John Barnes]

VistaBootPro 3 .1 killed my Vista boot on Beta2. Earlier versions of
VistaBootPro worked fine. Not sure why, but either use an earlier version
or make sure you can either boot from another source or restore your boot
file before using it.

 

[Guest]

there's no need to change it back to effect a one-time reboot to a different
OS: just use the /bootsequence switch of bcdedit. for example, i created
shortcuts that resemble the following in the quicklaunch toolbars of all of
my vista and XP installations:

Boot XP Pro (Once)
%windir%\system32\cmd.exe /c "bcdedit /bootsequence {ntldr} /addlast &&
shutdown -r -t 0"

Boot Vista RC2 (Once)
%windir%\system32\cmd.exe /c "bcdedit /bootsequence {uuid of vista rc2
installation} /addlast && shutdown -r -t 0"

use bcdedit to get the uuid you need for the latter.

 

[John C. Iliff]

I had installed VBP 3.0, and when I installed VBP 3.1 (AND removed 3.0)
everything still works great!
John