Number 292 - September 2007

Dual Booting Linux & Vista using EasyBCD
by Bill Wayson, bwayson@gmail.com The Outer Edge, Channel Islands PCUG, June 2007
In this article, I will be departing from my custom of writing primarily about free and open source software (FOSS). I will be discussing a relatively tK:W product, EasyBCD, which is targeted toward people who want to install Microsoft Windows Vista and retain the ability to boot into other operating systems that are installed on the same computer. This product is of interest to the FOSS community since EasyBCD can boot Linux, thus allowing dualbooting between Vista and Linux. Even if you are not a user of FOSS, EasyBCD may still be something for you to consider if you, say, want to try out Vista yet continue to use your trusted Windows 9x, ME, 2000, or XP installation. EasyBCD appears to make booting any or all of the combinations above, and many others, quite simple. EasyBCD is closed source software, but it is available as a free download from NeoSmart Technologies at neosmart.net.    EasyBCD belongs to a class of software known as bootloaders. The purpose of a bootloader is to start ruIming an operating system after a computer is started or rebooted. Since many PC users run one operating system only, they probably are unaware that between the power on self test (POST) and them running a program, a bootloader ran on their PC. Most probably become aware of bootloaders only at the time they decide to install a second operating system on their PC. Bootloaders for PCs range from the extremely simple and feature-poor loaders that were part of the DOS, Windows 9x, and ME operating systems, to very flexible products like System Commander or the open source Grub.    The impetus behind this month's topic is the fact that at the May CIPCUG Linux SIG we did get openSUSE Linux 10.2 installed and working, but the PC still boots by default into Vista. So we need to configure the Vista bootloader to recognize that Linux is installed on the same PC and to be able to boot into it. (If this were my personal PC, I would configure Grub, the most popular boot-loader that comes with Linux distributions, to recognize and boot Vista along with Linux. But since this is the CIPCUG PC, I will leave the Vista boot-loader as the primary boot system.)    To be clear, EasyBCD is not itself a bootloader. It provides a graphical interface to manipulate the new bootloader that comes with Vista and appears to augment it in some ways, such as keeping its own store of information about the operating systems it has been configured to boot. The Vista bootloader system is completely new and different than all preceding Microsoft bootloading systems. Its configmation data is stored in a binary form that Microsoft calls the Boot Configuration Data store, hence "BCD." Vista does come with a command line interface, bcdeditexe, for manipulating the Vista bootloader. But it is generally described as user-hostile. EasyBCD hides most of the gory details of bcdeditexe and the Vista bootloader files behind a	simple mouse and fill-in-the-blank user interface. But the bootloader doing all the work remains that of Vista.    Using EasyBCD to boot Linux or Vista appears to be quite simple. The download from neosmart.net is a Windows executable. Before you run it, you need to know which drive and partition your Grub was installed on. You may have seen this, or set it explicitly when you installed yom Linux. If you did not, then look to yom Linux documentation, the EasyBCD manual, or one of the many Grub tutorials on the Internet. Describing all the possibilities is beyond the scope of this article. In the case of the CIPCUG PC, where the first drive contains Vista and the second drive contains Linux, Grub is installed on the first partition of the second hard drive. Armed with this information, you can start EasyBCD, which will present you with a simple graphical interface. Just press the " Add/Remove Entries" button on the left, and you should see a pane with at least one entry: Microsoft Windows Vista. Select "Linux/BSD" from the tabs below (Windows and Mac OS X are other options). In the "Type" dropdown box, choose Grub. Change the "Name" field to whatever you want, but not too long. This will be the menu entry you see when you next boot the PC. Now choose the correct hard drive number (the first hard drive is 0 "zero") and partition number (the fIrst partition is 1 "one"). On the CIPCUG PC, we will choose 1 and 1. When done, press the "Add Entry" button and the new entry will appear in the pane above. Now press "Save," exit EasyBCD, and reboot the PC. You soon will see a menu where you can choose to boot into either Vista or Linux. Test each menu item to verify correct booting, but you should be all done.    I will be out of town the evening the June CIPCUG Linux SIG would normally be held on, so look to the SIG section of the CIPCUG Web site at www.cipcug.org to see if there will be a SIG in June. We may try to hold the June SIG one week earlier on the 21st. If we cannot reschedule, the next Linux SIG I will attend win be the Thursday, July 26, meeting.    If you have questions, would like to learn more about Linux and FOSS, or have something to present, come to the next CIPCUG Linux SIG meeting (see previous paragraph) at Ventura County Computers in Ventura. At that meeting, we will be using EasyBCD to set up dual booting between Vista and Linux. Come see how to boot different operating systems that are installed on the same computer.    If you have a question or topic you would like the Lair or Linux SIG to cover, drop me a line at bwayson@gmail.com. Until next month, happy computing.
Number 292 - September 2007