Anyone know how to edit the boot entries manually? I have triple boot - win8, win8.1, win7 with EFI system partition on GPT disk, there is no problem with win8(installed first), but on win8.1 and win7, the boot manager pointed it to windows\system32\winload.exe, and it should pointed to windows\system32\winload.efi in order to work, how can I change that? Thanks in advance.
I've been playing with this as well. There's some sort of modification you gotta do besides the bcdboot stuff. If I figure it out I'll try and post it here.
in elevated cmd, run this to get win8.1 and win7 GUIDs Code: bcdedit then run this to change the path: Code: bcdedit /set {guid} path \windows\system32\winload.efi note: not tested by me as i don't use EFI
Oh I think I misread his post. I think he probably setup win7 using BIOS boot instead of UEFI boot setup. So yah he'd probably need to bcdedit /set the path to the winload.efi I'm curious about how to setup the ability to boot to win7 EFI by manually applying images and using bcdboot. It's possible I did it wrong in my testing, but it was giving me a missing or does not match error message for winload.efi
I had secure boot with win8, then I manually applied the image for win8.1, got it worked(rename winload.efi to winload.exe), then disable secure boot, installed win7, rename winload.efi to winload.exe, got it worked too, but they were not the proper ways to do it, and Easybcd only pointed to winload.exe.
I know my way around bcdedit, the problem is the efi loader that win7 uses. I think there's some sort of mismatch when you have both win7 and win8.x installed in EFI mode. Win7 gives an error that something is wrong with some efi file. HALIKUS mentioned doing some sort of trick to allow 2x bootx64.efi or whatever the file is called, but for now I'm sort-of stuck. Obviously it's a piece of cake to install a dual-boot scenario with MBR partitioned drives, but GPT with EFI booting is just arrrrrrgh!!!
There is no problem tripple booting Win 7+8+8.1 on UEFI. The boot manager should be that of Win 8.1. Loaders should be corresponding winload.efi. To set 8.1 boot manager you can use "bcdboot x:\windows", where x: is 8.1 drive. This command sets also 8.1 as default boot entry. Secure boot should be disabled for booting Win 7.
HALIKUS sent me a pm describing how to get the win7 working on a dual-boot efi system. Basically you need to set win7 to a specific drive, and probably assign drive letters for your different windows partitions. I.E. if you win7 drive is assigned to W:\ it might work, whereas setting it to c:\ might or might not, depending on the order with which you set-up the drives
Ahh, I've finally nailed down the culprit stopping me from booting my win7... It was secure boot. I've tried to look fairly hard, but there does not seem to be a way to boot win7 with secure boot enabled. I've looked for key files that you can import to your bios from my motherboard's website. I've looked for key files in general. Nobody seems to have any win7 secure boot keys. I think it's just not compatible with the win7. Disabling secure boot allowed the win7 to load just fine with UEFI boot. So, no, it had nothing to do with setting the device partitions or anything in my case. This is kind-of annoying as I'd actually prefer to have a win7/win8.1 dual-boot for the first time in my own history. I usually despise dual-booting, but there are some things that I prefer to run from win7 since the drivers and programs have all the kinks worked out. Anyway, to set up win7 and win8 dual-booting if you don't mind removing the secure boot watermark thing by editing the file, is simply: 1) Make sure secure boot is disabled 2) Install win7 on a fresh un-partitioned space 3) shrink HD using diskmgmt.msc and right clicking on the win7 partition 4) add a new simple volume for the unpartitioned space and let it format it 5) Run setup from the sources\ folder of a win8.x dvd and point it at the new partition That's pretty much it. Just don't enable secure boot if you want a win7 dual-boot *rolls eyes at microsoft for making a secure boot watermark*
I'm glad you got that working Murphy, i was at a funeral\holiday the past week or so. I was in VMware with my tests so there was no secure boot. While i was away i remembered that Win7 wasn't compatible with secure boot and was going to mention it to you, but lo and behold, the first thread i see upon my return was this one. EasyUEFI looks like a wonderful program if it works as advertised and you aren't familiar with the cmd route.