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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
December 21,
2008
Q.
Recently, when I start up my computer, I
have a choice of two different Windows XP
Home entries that require an action from me.
How do I get rid of this extra screen?
A. This
problem with two entries usually occurs when
the Windows XP Operating system has been
reinstalled or recovered. You will get two
entries forcing you to make a choice, or
wait the 30 seconds and then the default
will be selected. Most of the time, one of
these entries won't even work.
On some
computers, there will be an option to boot
into the recovery partition which will also
cause this extra boot screen to display. In
many cases the recovery partition will no
longer exist, but this entry still appears.
There are
a couple of ways you can get rid of this
extra entry and thus the screen too. You
could directly edit the "boot.ini" file, but
this is chancy for the novice to try.
Another
way is to use the Start and Recovery section
of the System Properties. To do this hold
down the Windows key and press the Pause
key. In XP, click the Advanced tab. In
Vista, click "Advanced system settings".
Then in either case, in the "Startup and
Recovery" section, click the Settings
button. This dialog opens.
Here you
can choose what to display, and how long the
choices will be displayed. In the above, you
can see that I have elected to display the
operating systems for 3 seconds, and to not
display any recovery options. Un-checking
both options will prevent this boot-up
screen from displaying. This may be the
easiest way to solve the original question.
However,
if you do not want to disable this screen
altogether, there is no accurate way
to decide if any of the entries are valid
without actually trying them. If one is not
valid and you select it, it can cause
problems. There is a third method that is
slightly different in XP and Vista. In XP,
Windows will automatically determine if the
entries are valid, and if not, remove them.
Click
Start, then run and enter msconfig. This
opens the System Configuration dialog. Click
on the BOOT.INI tab, and this displays:
Click on the "Check All Boot Paths" button,
and any that are found to be faulty will be
detected and can be removed.
In Vista, the dialog is slightly different.
Again, click Start, Run, enter msconfig and
click OK. Clicking the Boot tab opens a
dialog where all the options are listed.
Windows does not offer to detect a bad path
and the user must choose the one(s) to
remove. |
