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I have recently installed Unbuntu Desktop 10.10 on a partition alongside my normal Windows 7 x64 install. I expected to have only one OS boot menu which I would be able to edit via msconfig.exe in Windows. However I have two seperate sets of boot menus.

The first one contains a bunch of different Ubuntu boot options and also contains an option to boot to Windows 7 (this is last in the list).

If I choose windows 7 then I get presented with a second boot menu containing two options:

  • Windows 7
  • Ubuntu

The first boot menu defaults to Ubuntu and is on a short timeout. I want to change this to default to Windows 7 and increase the timeout. Can anyone help?

Google tells me to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and although I do have a grub folder I don't seem to have a file called menu.lst: Change default operating system at boot

I'm an Ubuntu and Linux n00b so please be gentle with any answers.

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Ubuntu starting with 9.10 uses Grub 2. Grub 2 uses /boot/grub/grub.cfg instead of menu.lst, but you make changes in /etc/default/grub and use update-grub or update-grub2 to update it. Please see this for more information.

Change these settings:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10

To something like:

GRUB_DEFAULT="Windows 7"
GRUB_TIMEOUT=20

Where you'd substitute the actual name of the Windows 7 menu entry.

You can remove Ubuntu from the second menu by starting a Window CMD shell (after you've booted Windows) and running:

bcdedit /delete Ubuntu
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  • hmm... that didn't work.
    – Steve
    Mar 12, 2011 at 19:28
  • I tried changing the entry to
    – Steve
    Mar 12, 2011 at 19:28
  • GRUB_DEFAULT="Windows 7" and I also tried changing it to GRUB_DEFAULT="Windows 7 (loader) (on dev/sda1)" which is the exact text in the menu
    – Steve
    Mar 12, 2011 at 19:29
  • I also tried changing it to GRUB_DEFAULT=6 as it's the 7th entry in the list but this also had no effect, it just boots into Unbuntu after the timeout
    – Steve
    Mar 12, 2011 at 19:30
  • @SpookyAction: According the information that I linked to, you can use a text string to name a menu item.
    – Dennis Williamson
    Mar 12, 2011 at 21:10

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