Windows 7 remove un-needed boot menu

[galaxstar]

I've been having this problem this problem since the beta :

I just installed windows 7 RC x86 on my netbook (medion akoya e1210 2gb ram 80gb hd). I only have one partition (i did the manual procedure to avoid the extra system partition) taking up the whole HD (ie fresh install on a newly and completely formatted hd).

Yet at startup, windows 7 insists on showing a boot manager with only one choice of course. I had the same problem with the beta (only i had the 200 mb system partition as well but no other os installed).

Why am i getting this boot manager menu at startup and most importantly how to get rid of it ?

Thanks

Note : I've also installed windows 7 (x64) on my main pc with several partitions present but no other os and i don't have this issue.

Edited June 7, 2009 by galaxstar

[eyeball]

Go into advanced system settings and change the timeout for OS selection to 0, that should do it

[galaxstar]

Sadly no, eyeball.

I forgot to mention that the boot manager menu does not display a timer.

I've tried changing the default timeout using BCDedit but again since this menu doesn't seem to use timemouts it made no difference.

Moreover on my other pc the option you mention is at 30 seconds and yet i don't get a boot menu at startup. Really puzzling

Thanks for your suggestion anyway

[eyeball]

So if you type bcdedit at command line how many entries do you have and what is the value next to "timeout" ?

[galaxstar]

So if you type bcdedit at command line how many entries do you have and what is the value next to "timeout" ?

bcdedit at command prompt gives me 2 "entries"

a Windows Boot Manager category with identifier : {bootmgr} and timeout 7 (i've changed it from 30 to see what would happen)

a Windows Boot Loader category with identifier : {current}

But i guess it counts as one entry .

Btw my win7 x64 system has almost exactly thesame bcdedit entry (except timeout 30) and minus the usefirmwarepcisettings option (=no on the netbook).

[Mr Snrub]

The boot menu appears if the default GUID is not found - in this case the BCDEdit output would have the "Windows Boot Manager" value "default" listed as a GUID instead of "{current}".

If this is the case, enter the following at an elevated command prompt:

bcdedit /default {current}

[galaxstar]

The boot menu appeara if the default GUID is not found - in this case the BCDEdit output would have the "Windows Boot Manager" value "default" listed as a GUID instead of "{current}".

If this is the case, enter the following at an elevated command prompt:

bcdedit /default {current}

I typed the bcdedit command but it didn't change anything. The Windows Boot Manager already had {current} as default.

[cluberti]

Can you paste (in code tags) the output of "bcdedit /ENUM" ?

[galaxstar]

Can you paste (in code tags) the output of "bcdedit /ENUM" ?

Here goes :

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier			  {bootmgr}
device				  partition=C:
description			 Windows Boot Manager
locale				  en-US
inherit				 {globalsettings}
default				 {current}
resumeobject			{453fa0e2-545a-11de-9f35-b853fce87737}
displayorder			{current}
toolsdisplayorder	   {memdiag}
timeout				 7

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier			  {current}
device				  partition=C:
path					\Windows\system32\winload.exe
description			 Windows 7
locale				  en-US
inherit				 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence		{453fa0e4-545a-11de-9f35-b853fce87737}
recoveryenabled		 Yes
osdevice				partition=C:
systemroot			  \Windows
resumeobject			{453fa0e2-545a-11de-9f35-b853fce87737}
nx					  OptIn
usefirmwarepcisettings  No

[cluberti]

The only thing I see different from the bcdedit on my Win7 boxes is that you have an extra setting: usefirmwarepcisettings. Not sure how or why that got there either, and I don't even know if it's the cause. However, what you have listed is the same (well, the GUIDs are different, but that's expected) from my VMs and real Win7 machines, so it's at least worth looking into how that got there. Also, the timeout default is 30 seconds and it's changed, so not sure what's been done to your bcd either, specifically.

[Mr Snrub]

Have you ever tried Vista on this laptop, and if so did it do the same?

Does the same occur whether you start from powered off or restart?

Does the system sleep and resume successfully?

The value for timeout has no bearing on this if the countdown timer isn't being displayed at all, so you can ignore that.

Can you paste the output of the 2 commands:

bcdedit /enum /v
reg query hklm\bcd00000000\objects

(HKLM\BCD00000000 is where the BCD is mounted as a hive during boot - it's probably not wise to go writing in there manually )

Regarding the BIOS - are there any updates for it, and what settings do you have related to the disk controller and its I/O mode?

I have only seen this symptom on a system with RAID1 where the BCD did not have all the resumeobjects set correctly, so if the first disk was pulled then the system would sit at the boot menu indefinitely until a key was pressed.

[galaxstar]

@ Mr Snrub :

Vista : no this netbook came with XP preinstalled. This behavior started with the first installation of win7 (beta). It's an atom-based netbook that originally came with 1gb of ram (2 now) so i didn't feel like putting vista on it. It's a medion akoya e1210 which is more or less a rebranded msi wind.

Sleep and resume : works great.

Bios : i've updated it once and that was before installing windows 7. Not much in terms of parameters. sata disk (no raid of coursel) and ahci enabled.

@cluberti

7 seconds timeout : following forum advice i've tried changing the value to 0 and since it didn't work i've set it again to 7 in case i would find a way to trigger the timer later.

usefirmwarepcisettings : i don't have this on my other win7 machine. I wonder if i should (and how) change this value.

[Mr Snrub]

usefirmwarepcisettings : i don't have this on my other win7 machine. I wonder if i should (and how) change this value.

To enable:

bcdedit /set {current} usefirmwarepcisettings ON

To disable:

bcdedit /set {current} usefirmwarepcisettings OFF

To remove entirely:

bcdedit /deletevalue {current} usefirmwarepcisettings

(I did these in a VM running Win7 build 7134 to see if I could repro your issue.)

[cluberti]

(I did these in a VM running Win7 build 7134 to see if I could repro your issue.)

As did I, and I can't with any build I've tried (RC1 or newer), so this is really wierd. I even enabled the odd setting and I still didn't get a boot menu, so I'm wondering what happens if I use, say, RC1 to install over an XP install? Not sure. This is pretty bizzare, at least currently.