How Win2000 multiple boot is implemented

In times when hard drives are cheap, many people choose to install multiple operating systems on a single machine, one that can learn more and become familiar with other operating systems. Another aspect, can also play the advantages of different operating systems, such as Win9x more suitable for games, and WinXP has a great advantage in the network.

In the process of installation, it is generally the first to install Win 9x and then installed Win 2000. With no other multiple boot software, Windows automatically mounts an OS loader menu to select a different operating system.

How does OS loader work?

To produce a multiple-system boot menu, there is one prerequisite: Two operating systems are installed in different disk partitions.

It should be noted that the upgrade installation is actually overwriting the previous operating system, so there is actually only one operating system that does not produce the boot menu.

After the Win 98 is installed to the C disk, then in the D-disk New Installation Win 2000, the Win 2000 installation program in the C-packing directory will produce a file named Bootsect.dos, and the C-disk Win 98 of the boot program moved to this file, and then in the C-disk boot area into the Win 2000 their own boot program, at the same time in the C-packing directory will also produce boot.ini, Bootfont.bin, Ntdetect.com, NTLDR, and other files, the five files whose properties are System (S) and Hidden (H). After the computer starts, run the Win 2000 boot program, which calls Ntldr and Ntdetect.com in turn, then reads the contents of the Boot.ini and displays a multiple-system selection menu on the screen based on the font specified by Bootfont.bin. If the user does not make a selection, the computer automatically runs the default operating system after the time specified in Boot.ini, starting the WIN 2000 operating system installed on the D disk, and if the user chooses the win 2000 operating system, the startup process is the same as when the user does not make a selection. Only a slight difference in startup time; If the user chooses the win 98 operating system, the computer will start the Win 98 installed on the C disk by Bootsect.dos.

Boot.ini file:

The Boot.ini file is actually a standard text file that you can open with a generic text editor with the following contents:

⑴[boot Loader] "System boot section" flag.

⑵TIMEOUT=30 Specifies the wait time, which can be changed directly to the desired time, or if the number "0" means that the default operating system is started directly without waiting, similar to the startup situation when no multiple systems are installed.

⑶default=multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) WiNNT Specifies the default boot system, where the "WiNNT directory under the second partition of the first physical disk" is used to indicate the installation location of Win 2000, if "=" After the content is changed to "C:" Then the default boot system is changed to win 98.

⑷[operating Systems] "Multi-system Menu section" logo.

⑸c:= "Microsoft Windows" displays win 98 in the multi-system menu and indicates its startup location after installation.

⑹multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) winnt= "Microsoft Windows Professional"/fastdetect show win in the multi-system menu 2000 and indicates the starting position after installation.