Firstly, congratulations on rEFInd - it's fantastic. I've recently installed it on a laptop that has three different OS's; Ubuntu, and two separate installations of Windows 10 (all on the same physical SSD). I've successfully configured rEFInd to bypass Grub when booting Ubuntu and directly load the OS instead, but I can only boot the two MS installation by first loading the Windows Boot Manager from rEFInd, then selecting the desired Windows OS. In some cases, this requires a further machine restart and repeat of the process in order to load the desired Windows OS.
There was some previous discussion of whether multiple Windows installations could be added to rEFInd directly (see here), but this was back in 2013. I'm just wondering if things have changed some five years later? Ideally I'm seeking a way to add both Windows installations to rEFInd, and boot into them directly depending on the chosen selection (bypassing the current Windows Boot Manager). Could this be achieved by copying relevant winload.efi files from the two separate Windows installations to the EFI partition, or perhaps launching Windows via a shell with some additional parameters? I have tried various attempts at the former without success (rEFInd just says it's unable to boot).
Any guidance and examples would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.
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I've achieved dual Windows boot (different drives) by mixing appropriate stanzas (which contains first Windows entry) and automatic rEFInd search (with filters like dont_scan, which keep second Windows entry only visible).
Chatting with Microsoft representative is useless. They claim "Windows is not designed for multiple instances" (you can react "so why Windows boot menu for" - but it only prolongs convulsions of that chat), and get rid of you by promise "we will send you an e-mail with all recent info regarding to multiple booting". Like they knew what's that all conversation was about ;-/
Last edit: biuro74 2018-03-22
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hi all,
Firstly, congratulations on rEFInd - it's fantastic. I've recently installed it on a laptop that has three different OS's; Ubuntu, and two separate installations of Windows 10 (all on the same physical SSD). I've successfully configured rEFInd to bypass Grub when booting Ubuntu and directly load the OS instead, but I can only boot the two MS installation by first loading the Windows Boot Manager from rEFInd, then selecting the desired Windows OS. In some cases, this requires a further machine restart and repeat of the process in order to load the desired Windows OS.
There was some previous discussion of whether multiple Windows installations could be added to rEFInd directly (see here), but this was back in 2013. I'm just wondering if things have changed some five years later? Ideally I'm seeking a way to add both Windows installations to rEFInd, and boot into them directly depending on the chosen selection (bypassing the current Windows Boot Manager). Could this be achieved by copying relevant
winload.efifiles from the two separate Windows installations to the EFI partition, or perhaps launching Windows via a shell with some additional parameters? I have tried various attempts at the former without success (rEFInd just says it's unable to boot).Any guidance and examples would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.
I've achieved dual Windows boot (different drives) by mixing appropriate stanzas (which contains first Windows entry) and automatic rEFInd search (with filters like dont_scan, which keep second Windows entry only visible).
Chatting with Microsoft representative is useless. They claim "Windows is not designed for multiple instances" (you can react "so why Windows boot menu for" - but it only prolongs convulsions of that chat), and get rid of you by promise "we will send you an e-mail with all recent info regarding to multiple booting". Like they knew what's that all conversation was about ;-/
Last edit: biuro74 2018-03-22