[arch-general] Win 10 Dual boot nightmare
Hi All, I’ve been a Linux user off and on for ten years or so, and over the past while really come to enjoy the simplicity of Arch. I decided to install on my new HP laptop which came pre-installed with Windows 10. I honestly almost feel like I preferred the BIOS/boot sector situation. I understand the advantages of EFI in theory, but Win 10 is driving me nuts with its refusal to be a good EFI citizen. Compounding the frustration is the fact that I’m totally blind, and thus my ability to interact with EFI is limited. I’ve tried the wiki-recommended approach of using BCDEdit to set the {fwbootmgr} DEFAULT entry to the Linux boot manager, in my case systemd-boot. As far as I can tell it does absolutely nothing, that is, Windows still boots after a computer restart. The only way I’ve managed to boot Linux is to change BootNext, or as BCDEdit calls it, BootSequence. This works for a one-time boot but is fairly tedious. The alternative wiki approach of changing the path of {bootmgr}, doesn’t seem to do anything either. Windows still boots as it always has. I note that {fwbootmgr} and {bootmgr} seem to be different. I’ve considered changing the path of {fwbootmgr} instead, but ben reluctant for fear of locking myself out of Windows. Any advice would be appreciated. If this were a BIOS system I would have no trouble with Grub. Thanks much, Zack.
Hello, You can install GRUB for EFI too. If Windows does break (it shouldn't) then [1] contains instructions on how to fix it from a Windows DVD/USB installer. You can download the Windows installer image from Microsoft. I actually had to put the Windows installer on a multiboot USB to make it boot [2]. Florian [1] http://superuser.com/questions/460762/how-can-i-repair-the-windows-8-efi-boo... [2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multiboot_USB_drive#Chainloading_Window...
Hi Zachary, I have an HP laptop as well, and I think the problem you're facing is that neither HP nor Windows are good EFI citizens. On the HP laptop that I have, for instance, the EFI boot manager does not respect any global NVRAM variables except for BootNext. Default, BootOrder etc. are all ignored (I edited them using the efibootmgr tool on Arch, so it wasn't Windows that changed them back). In addition, it seems to be hardcoded to only boot the windows boot manager. The only workaround I was able to find was to physically move around the .efi files in the EFI partition. I renamed the windows EFI application - $EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi by default, replaced it with the systemd-boot bootx64.efi (as in the last section of the wiki article [1]) and then added an entry to systemd-boot to boot Windows from its new, renamed, application path. This shouldn't lock you out of Windows, but it is also easily reversed in case something goes wrong. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#U... Murari
Hi Murari, Thank you for this suggestion. It seems to have worked as expected. My laptop defaults to Arch, but I can boot Windows with the second entry. I hope I remember to upgrade the renamed image when systems-boot changes. I don’t anticipate that being too often, thankfully. Best and thanks again, Zack.
On Mar 15, 2016, at 3:16 AM, Murari <murari.ksr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Zachary,
I have an HP laptop as well, and I think the problem you're facing is that neither HP nor Windows are good EFI citizens. On the HP laptop that I have, for instance, the EFI boot manager does not respect any global NVRAM variables except for BootNext. Default, BootOrder etc. are all ignored (I edited them using the efibootmgr tool on Arch, so it wasn't Windows that changed them back). In addition, it seems to be hardcoded to only boot the windows boot manager.
The only workaround I was able to find was to physically move around the .efi files in the EFI partition. I renamed the windows EFI application - $EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi by default, replaced it with the systemd-boot bootx64.efi (as in the last section of the wiki article [1]) and then added an entry to systemd-boot to boot Windows from its new, renamed, application path. This shouldn't lock you out of Windows, but it is also easily reversed in case something goes wrong.
[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#U...
Murari
On 03/15/2016 06:26 PM, Zachary Kline wrote:
Hi Murari,
Thank you for this suggestion. It seems to have worked as expected. My laptop defaults to Arch, but I can boot Windows with the second entry. I hope I remember to upgrade the renamed image when systems-boot changes. I don’t anticipate that being too often, thankfully.
Best and thanks again, Zack.
You could write yourself a pacman hook to do that for you if you feel like it. Seems like it would be exacly what you need. Cheers, Bennett -- GPG fingerprint: 871F 1047 7DB3 DDED 5FC4 47B2 26C7 E577 EF96 7808
Am 15.03.2016 um 05:06 schrieb Zachary Kline:
Hi All,
I’ve been a Linux user off and on for ten years or so, and over the past while really come to enjoy the simplicity of Arch. I decided to install on my new HP laptop which came pre-installed with Windows 10.
I honestly almost feel like I preferred the BIOS/boot sector situation. I understand the advantages of EFI in theory, but Win 10 is driving me nuts with its refusal to be a good EFI citizen. Compounding the frustration is the fact that I’m totally blind, and thus my ability to interact with EFI is limited. I’ve tried the wiki-recommended approach of using BCDEdit to set the {fwbootmgr} DEFAULT entry to the Linux boot manager, in my case systemd-boot. As far as I can tell it does absolutely nothing, that is, Windows still boots after a computer restart.
The only way I’ve managed to boot Linux is to change BootNext, or as BCDEdit calls it, BootSequence. This works for a one-time boot but is fairly tedious.
The alternative wiki approach of changing the path of {bootmgr}, doesn’t seem to do anything either. Windows still boots as it always has. I note that {fwbootmgr} and {bootmgr} seem to be different. I’ve considered changing the path of {fwbootmgr} instead, but ben reluctant for fear of locking myself out of Windows.
Any advice would be appreciated. If this were a BIOS system I would have no trouble with Grub. Thanks much, Zack. Hello Zachary,
Have you turned off fastboot in Windows 10? On two of three machines, I'm unable to change {bootmgr} from within Windows. I have no idea why this happens. Regards Sascha
participants (5)
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Bennett Piater
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Florian Pelz
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Murari
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Sascha Shaw
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Zachary Kline