Dual Boot Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

By Doug Holland (Intel) (245 posts) on February 26, 2008 at 11:19 pm

After researching how to enable Aero on the Windows Server 2008 desktop (see previous blog post) I proceeded to install Windows Server 2008 onto the third hard drive within a desktop computer that currently has Windows Vista running on the first two disks within a RAID configuration.

Windows Server 2008 installed without an issue however upon rebooting, once the installation was complete, there was no boot menu. Of course, Microsoft had removed the boot.ini file that users of previous versions of Windows were so familiar with and replaced it with the Windows Vista Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store. Windows Server 2008 also uses the same BCD store and the installation does not enumerate your disks to add boot entries for other operating systems found, which previous versions of the Windows setup would do automatically.

Although there are several utilities with nice user interfaces available to help you edit the BCD store, I decided that I would learn how to use the bcdedit.exe command line utility that Microsoft provides for this purpose.

Using bcdedit.exe /enum to enumerate through the current entries within the BCD store you'll see something like the following:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier         {bootmgr}
device             partition=C:
description        Windows Boot Manager
locale             en-US
inherit            {globalsettings}
default            {current}
displayorder       {current}
toolsdisplayorder  {memdiag}
timeout            30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier         {current}
device             partition=C:
path               \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description        Microsoft Windows Server 2008
locale             en-US
inherit            {bootloadersettings}
osdevice           partition=C:
systemroot         \Windows
resumeobject       {6d3956ce-e199-11dc-8c11-c156da9e35f2}
nx                 OptOut

To enable the computer to also boot Windows Vista you again use bcdedit.exe with the following command which will copy the current Windows Boot Loader details for Windows Server 2008 to Windows Vista.

bcdedit.exe /copy {current} /d "Microsoft Windows Vista"

bcdedit.exe will respond with something like the following.

The entry was successfully copied to {8677dee0-e502-11dc-9f96-001e4cde5025}.

Using bcdedit.exe /enum to again enumerate through the current entries within the BCD store you'll see the newly added entry:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier         {bootmgr}
device             partition=C:
description        Windows Boot Manager
locale             en-US
inherit            {globalsettings}
default            {current}
displayorder       {current}
toolsdisplayorder  {memdiag}
timeout            30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier         {current}
device             partition=C:
path               \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description        Microsoft Windows Server 2008
locale             en-US
inherit            {bootloadersettings}
osdevice           partition=C:
systemroot         \Windows
resumeobject       {6d3956ce-e199-11dc-8c11-c156da9e35f2}
nx                 OptOut
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier         {8677dee0-e502-11dc-9f96-001e4cde5025}.
device             partition=C:
path               \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description        Microsoft Windows Vista
locale             en-US
inherit            {bootloadersettings}
osdevice           partition=C:
systemroot         \Windows
resumeobject       {6d3956ce-e199-11dc-8c11-c156da9e35f2}
nx                 OptOut

Before you can use the newly created Windows boot loader configuration, you'll need to change the partition for Windows Vista using the following two bcdedit.exe commands.

bcdedit.exe /set {8677dee0-e502-11dc-9f96-001e4cde5025} device partition=D:

bcdedit.exe /set {8677dee0-e502-11dc-9f96-001e4cde5025} osdevice partition=D:

If you now reboot the system you should now be able to boot into either Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista.

Categories: Manageability, Software Engineering, Virtualization

Comments (28)

April 9, 2008 10:16 AM PDT


ERiCK		 i want to try dual booting Vista & Server 2008...

1. on its first reboot, where can i find bcdedit.exe?
2. do i need to install Vista first then Server 2008? (silly question)
3. should the Server200 be installed on CD boot? (another silly question)

4. if my installation did not work, how can i go back just using vista?

thanks!
June 24, 2008 4:37 PM PDT


Snowden		 Just curious...Would the steps here be the same or similar if I wanted to dual boot between 2008 and Linux??? I ask cause I'm trying to run xen on a different partition but when I do a fresh install with 2008 then Xen, the 2008 bootmgr goes to crap and when I fix that it says that the partition is unreadable or No OS! So I decided to install Xen first then 2008, now I'm trying to figure out how to edit the 2008 boot menu. Thanks very much for help. Domo.
June 24, 2008 4:45 PM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 In answer to the question posted by Erick the bcdedit.exe should be located within the C:\Windows\System32 folder of either Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.

If you are installing Vista SP1 then it shouldn't matter which you install first given that both operating systems released to manufacturing on the same day. Although if you're installing the original Vista RTM then I'd install that operating system first and then Server 2008 on a second partition / disk.

Yes, install Server 2008 on CD/DVD boot.

- Doug
June 24, 2008 4:46 PM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 In answer to Snowden, ... sorry I don't have any experiance in configuring Linux partitions with bcdedit.exe although you might be able to do it.

- Doug
August 19, 2008 9:06 AM PDT


Victor Goldstein		 Thank you so much for posting this because I have the same scenario after installing Server 2008 to the third hard drive while Vista was already already installed on the first.

I will try your directions a little later. It seems like you covered everything so thanks again for helping the rest of us :)

Victor
August 19, 2008 9:20 AM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 Hi Victor,

Glad I could help...

- Doug
August 20, 2008 10:20 PM PDT


Scott Smith		 I am trying to set up a dual boot system on a Vista laptop without much luck. Everyone seems to think this is more successful if XP is installed first, so I finally decided to wipe Vista from the C drive partition and install XP first on a different partition (F in this case). XP installed and booted fine. Then I ran the Vista restore (HP laptop that only has a Restore Partition) and that installed fine but when it rebooted, there was no Windows Boot Manager menu, it just went right into Vista without providing the choice of OS. How do I get this menu to activate to show the two operating systems?
August 21, 2008 8:56 AM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 Hi Scott,

Can you still see the XP partition if you look at the Disk Management section of the Computer Management console?

You open the Computer Management console from Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management...

Unfortunately you might find that the restore option wipes the entire drive asidefrom the hidden partition it uses itself. If this is the case you won't be able to use XP as well because it is no longer there. Personally I don't like the fact that you don't get restore CD's or DVD's with machines these days and what happens if you have a hard drive failure, now you've lost your Windows backup also.

If you have XP still there then you should be able to follow the instructions above to also boot XP.

Regards,

Doug
August 21, 2008 11:15 AM PDT


Scott Smith		 Doug:

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I tried, but was unable to access bcdedit.exe, so I downloaded EasyBCD 1.7.2 and found some interesting things. Although the XP files are still present on the F partition, the XP operating system is not seen by EasyBCD in the View Settings menu, only Vista on C. I chose Add/Remove Entries to add XP, but when I chose XP as the OS Type, the drive letter pulldown just grays out, so apparently EasyBCD doesn't even recognize there is another OS on the hard drive. I am not very technical, so I am completely confused. Do you think my problems go back to trying to be too cute during my initial partitioning and choosing drive letters? The Vista and XP partitions stayed with my choices, but the Recovery partition went to E which was the original optical partition (which went to G) and the Data partition went to D which was the original Recovery partition letter. My head is starting to hurt!
August 21, 2008 11:22 AM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 Hey Scott,

What editions of Vista and XP are you using?

Also, do you have access to an actual Vista DVD as you might have a customized build of Vista that lacks the bcdedit.exe utility.

I bought my daughter an HP laptop a week ago for school and the first thing I did was use an MSDN Vista DVD to install a clean OS on the machine, removing the hidden restore partition. Fortunately, the license key from the under side of the notebook worked to activate Vista using the MSDN media.

- Doug
August 21, 2008 12:38 PM PDT


Scott Smith		 I'm using Vista Home Premium 64 SP1 and Windows Home SP2. I think you are right about the custom build of Vista. I agree completely they should supply something to allow access to the Vista Recovery Console. At the least, it could be a part of the Recovery Load that HP supplies, but there is no repair option, just blow it out and reload. I have made progress. The EasyBCD forum set me straight on the proper function of the program. When I tried to add XP as an entry, the drive letter pulldown is supposed to be grayed out and I should have just clicked Add anyway. I tried that again and it attempted to add the entry but I got an error that it could not locate NTLDR on my HD and to download NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM for the entry to work. I grabbed those from the web and placed them on the XP root drive and restarted. Lo and behold, I got the Boot Manager Menu! My joy was brief, because when I chose to boot XP, I got an error that Windows Failed to Start and it listed the File: NTLDR, Status: 0xc000000f and said the "selected entry could not be loaded because the application is corrupt or missing. The screen also recommended that I use the XP install disk to do a repair...which if I do, it will break Vista and because I can't repair Vista, it becomes groundhog day.
August 21, 2008 12:50 PM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 Dude, wish I could help you more but I think you'll need to locate a Vista DVD and install from the original Microsoft media. You might be able to get a DVD from the computer manufacturer for a small fee, but just ask them if it is a Microsoft DVD or an HP DVD for example, otherwise you might still get the custom build.

- Doug
August 21, 2008 3:44 PM PDT


Scott Smith		 Okay Doug. I'll let you know how it comes out. I sure agree with you that they need to provide the ablility to run a repair function from the Recovery Disks. Must just be money, but it is also kind of sadistic. Thanks for helping me out.
August 21, 2008 3:54 PM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 No problem Scott,

Good luck

- Doug
September 28, 2008 10:04 AM PDT


Patrick Dunphy		 I tried this and the dual boot menu comes up, but no way will it load W2008 or Vista
I have 2 HDs, I installed Vista on one and W2008 on the other, using each one as the only drive
My HP DV9310 laptop will not let me choose anything other than drive C in the setup, and I suspect this is the problem, HP simply will not boot from anything that is not drive C, can you confirm this or help in any way.?
thanks
Patrick
PS, I have tried both ways, ie Vista on drive 1 and W2008 on drive 2 and vice versa, and followed your BCDEDIT routines exactly. Should I try installing W2008 from within Vista to the 2nd HD?
November 14, 2008 2:44 PM PST

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 Hey Patrick,

Sorry to hear you are having trouble with dual booting Vista and Server 2008. I'm afraid I don't have any other suggestions other than to contact HP or Microsoft and see if either of them can assist you further. It could be something to do with the BIOS on your HP DV9310 laptop.

I'm now running Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 and you'll be glad to know that you won't have to use bcdedit.exe in the future as Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 both play nice together. Of couse, you may still have the same issue on the HP laptop if it is indeed a BIOS issue.

Good luck...

- Doug
January 11, 2009 8:13 AM PST


Greg Shields		 Doug, your last comment may only be half-correct. I recently installed an instance of W7 Beta to a laptop which was originally loaded with WS2008. Creating a dual-boot situation in this order required the use of bcdedit.

It might be the case in the final version that this works correctly, but with the beta bits I was still forced to use this process.
February 3, 2009 12:33 PM PST


Doug Barnes		 I've added a copy of Windows 7 in a second partition on a disk that contained Server2K8 Standard 32 Bit run as a Workstation
Both work, but I just can't get BCDEDIT to work.
I'd like to make my default OS Server2K8, not Winows 7, but anything I try with BCDEdit results in
The boot configuration data store could not be opened.
The requested system device cannot be found.
I've even resorted to logging in as the Admin Account used to install Server 2008 but just cand get anywhere with BCDEDIT
can anyone give me some ideas on what I'm doing wrong, I'm working in the root of C:, should I be somewhere else before I try any BCDEDIT commands
Any suggestions would be welcome
February 8, 2009 5:38 PM PST


Shane		 I was able to install Windows 2008 on a separate secondary hard drive (E) and when the pc reboots there is a boot menu with WS 2008 listed. My problem is that when server 08 loads it is now telling me that the OS installation is not on a supported partition and needs to be installed on C: (where I have Vista of course). I guess my question is will the above steps work for my situation?
April 14, 2009 6:04 AM PDT


Jay		 I want to install share point server2007 (it works only in windows server 2003/2007) but in my laptop Vista home premium is installed. which option is suggestable for me
1. go for dual boot vista and windows server 2003 (is it possible if yes how?)
2. go for virtulization (Virtual PC 2007 )and then install server 2003 and then share point
Thanks in advance...
April 14, 2009 9:33 AM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 Hey Jay,

Option 1 is most likely the best option for you unless you have a very capable laptop in terms of processor and memory.

Unless you have at least a dual core processor and 4Gb of memory on a 64-bit OS so that you can address the entire 4Gb then I would suggest going with option 1.

Mobile platforms are appearing with quad core processors and 8 or even 16Gb of memory and with such hardware option 2 becomes very viable.

- Doug
April 30, 2009 11:55 PM PDT


racerxtc

Here's my mod on the to dual boot with TWO HDDs. I did this with server 2008 on C: and
Windows 7 on O:

Change "Windows Vista" to "Windows 7" so it shows up on your menu as such.

At the bottom of the page

bcdedit.exe /set {a3afd8d2-35e3-11de-bc17-001d7d0c7ee9} device partition=D:

bcdedit.exe /set {a3afd8d2-35e3-11de-bc17-001d7d0c7ee9} osdevice partition=D:

change "partition=D: to your Windows 7 drive letter. Mine was O:

Works like a charm !

################################################################# ###############

Windows Server 2008 installed without an issue however upon rebooting, once the installation was complete, there was no boot menu. Of course, Microsoft had removed the boot.ini file that users of previous versions of Windows were so familiar with and replaced it with the Windows Vista Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store. Windows Server 2008 also uses the same BCD store and the installation does not enumerate your disks to add boot entries for other operating systems found, which previous versions of the Windows setup would do automatically.

Although there are several utilities with nice user interfaces available to help you edit the BCD store, I decided that I would learn how to use the bcdedit.exe command line utility that Microsoft provides for this purpose.

Using bcdedit.exe /enum to enumerate through the current entries within the BCD store you'll see something like the following:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Server 2008
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {6d3956ce-e199-11dc-8c11-c156da9e35f2}
nx OptOut

To enable the computer to also boot Windows Vista you again use bcdedit.exe with the following command which will copy the current Windows Boot Loader details for Windows Server 2008 to Windows Vista.

bcdedit.exe /copy {current} /C: "Windows 7"

bcdedit.exe will respond with something like the following.

The entry was successfully copied to {8677dee0-e502-11dc-9f96-001e4cde5025}.

Using bcdedit.exe /enum to again enumerate through the current entries within the BCD store you'll see the newly added entry:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Server 2008
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {6d3956ce-e199-11dc-8c11-c156da9e35f2}
nx OptOut
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {8677dee0-e502-11dc-9f96-001e4cde5025}.
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {6d3956ce-e199-11dc-8c11-c156da9e35f2}
nx OptOut

Before you can use the newly created Windows boot loader configuration, you'll need to change the partition for Windows Vista using the following two bcdedit.exe commands.

bcdedit.exe /set {a3afd8d2-35e3-11de-bc17-001d7d0c7ee9} device partition=D:

bcdedit.exe /set {a3afd8d2-35e3-11de-bc17-001d7d0c7ee9} osdevice partition=D:

If you now reboot the system you should now be able to boot into either Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista.
June 12, 2009 7:51 AM PDT


Ricardo Garrido		 Thanks for the simple and functional explanation.
July 27, 2009 10:35 PM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 I just installed Windows Server 2008 R2 onto a machine with Windows 7 and these steps were able to help me dual boot those operating systems.

One really useful aspect of blogging is that sometimes you reference back to your own blog posts when you need to do something again that you have not had to do in a while.

- Doug
July 30, 2009 4:08 AM PDT


Rob		 A thousand thank yous to you!
This really helped me with my Dual boot setup of Vista x64 and Win Server 2008 R2
August 11, 2009 3:02 PM PDT

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 No worries Rob, glad it helped.

- Doug
September 23, 2009 2:25 PM PDT


Houssam Chahine		 Dear Doug,

I tried to fill the commands you requested but unfortunately i didn't succeed to have the dual boot option.
I have vista pre-installed, and I installed win 2008 server later on.

When using the bcdedit.exe /enum the following shows up:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=D:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {e87e0b17-d436-11dc-9975-e30fa38d142e}
displayorder {current}
{e87e0b16-d436-11dc-9975-e30fa38d142e}
{b2acf424-a878-11de-98d7-001eec98d0b6}
{b2acf425-a878-11de-98d7-001eec98d0b6}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 0

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path Windowssystem32winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Server 2008
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot Windows
resumeobject {94a98e97-6d0a-11de-a0f1-baf6b781c06b}
nx OptOut

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {e87e0b16-d436-11dc-9975-e30fa38d142e}
device partition=D:
path Windowssystem32winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {572bcd55-ffa7-11d9-aae0-0007e994107d}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot Windows
resumeobject {e87e0b17-d436-11dc-9975-e30fa38d142e}
nx OptIn

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {b2acf424-a878-11de-98d7-001eec98d0b6}
device partition=C:
path Windowssystem32winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot Windows
resumeobject {94a98e97-6d0a-11de-a0f1-baf6b781c06b}
nx OptOut

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {b2acf425-a878-11de-98d7-001eec98d0b6}
device partition=D:
path Windowssystem32winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot Windows
resumeobject {94a98e97-6d0a-11de-a0f1-baf6b781c06b}
nx OptOut

may you pls tell me the exact command i shall use in order to dual boot.

Thank you in advance. I really appreciate your efforts.
November 13, 2009 10:41 AM PST

Doug Holland (Intel)
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 Hey Houssam,

I appologize about the delay in responding to your message, usually we get e-mails when a new comment is posted although for some reason it didn't work when you posted your question. I'll check other posts for comments I should respond to also.

It looks like you have several duplicate entries for Windows Vista, essentially the last three all have different identifiers although you should only have one per operating system you'd like to boot.

I would suggest removing the entries other than {current} and then going through the process once again and it should work although let me know if you're still having issues.

Thanks,

Doug

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