Modifying Boot.ini In Windows XP

To adjust some startup options, you might need to open Boot.ini and edit it manually. Because this file is set with the hidden and system attributes, it doesn’t ordinarily appear in Windows Explorer; to edit it, use either of these techniques:

● Open the Run dialog box and type c:\boot.ini. (This assumes that drive C contains your startup files.)

● Open System in Control Panel, click the Advanced tab, click the Settings button under Startup And Recovery, and click the Edit button in the System Startup section.

In either case, the Boot.ini file opens in Notepad. A typical Boot.ini file might look like this:

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP

Professional" /fastdetect

C:\="Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition"

With two exceptions, the [boot loader] section contains items that are more easily changed through the Startup And Recovery dialog box, as explained in the previous section. One exception is if you want the boot menu to be displayed until you press Enter, regardless of how much time elapses. To configure your boot menu to work that way, set the timeout value to –1. (You can’t set that value in the Startup And Recovery dialog box.) The other exception that requires you to edit Boot.ini is when you want to change the descriptions or optional parameters in the [operating systems] section. Each line represents a boot menu item and includes the ARC path of the operating system’s boot partition, the text that appears on the boot menu (enclosed in quotation marks), and optional parameters.

You can adjust each item as follows:

● Change the text description for each operating system—particularly if multiple copies of the same operating system are installed on your computer. If you’ve installed a second, clean copy of Windows XP to test a few new programs, for instance, you might want to change its description to “Windows XP Pro–Clean Install.”

● Append a parameter to the Windows 2000 or Windows XP line (following /Fastdetect, a parameter that disables serial mouse detection). Most parameters are for development and debugging purposes only. Microsoft Windows XP Professional Resource Kit, Second Edition (Microsoft Press, 2003) contains a more complete list.

Here are two parameters you might want to try:

■ /Noguiboot eliminates the Windows splash screen during startup. Instead you get to continue staring at the horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen.

■ /Sos displays the name of each driver as it loads and provides additional text descriptions of what’s occurring during startup. It also shows the Windows XP build number, service pack level, number of processors, and amount of installed memory, providing a quick confirmation that Windows is installed correctly and that it’s properly recognizing your computer’s configuration.

● Remove an item from the menu. Doing so won’t free the space used by the operating system whose line you remove; it simply removes the item from the menu. However, you can subsequently remove that operating system’s files after you boot into one of the remaining operating systems in the list.