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I just setup my HP Notebook with 2 instances of Windows 10, installed on a single drive, and using UEFI style dual boot (i.e.: the bootloader starts that blue option screen letting me choose between the two instances, as opposed to the classic black/white BIOS type screen). Both Win10 instances are booting and working fine, so I could be happy with the result.

The weird thing is: the 1st instance ("Windows 10 MAIN") boots blazingly fast, and directly into the windows login screen after selecting it at the bootloader screen.

The 2nd instance ("Windows 10 MUSIC") though apparently does a complete reboot, this time without presenting the UEFI dual boot selection screen. Instead, after a (short) while, it finally gets to the "Windows 10 MUSIC" login screen. From then on everything appears to be normal. So this is more a curiosity-type question:

is this just the normal / weird Windows way, or did something go wrong during the setup?

--- update ---

maybe it helps explaining how I set this system up:

  1. installed Windows 10 MAIN to a previously wiped SSD; set the partition size to ~190 GB. The installation created the necessary additional partitions, the rest of the drive remained untouched
  2. booted into Windows 10 MAIN and changed the "display title" for the future selection menu using bcdedit
  3. rebooted to the setup image; created a fresh partition of ~150 GB, installed "Windows 10 MUSIC" to that partition
  4. booted into Windows 10 MUSIC and changed the "display title" for the future selection menu using bcdedit

Later on today I'll post a screenshot of a bcdedit /enum output

--- update #2 ---

here's the output from bcdedit /enum:

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows-Start-Manager
---------------------
Bezeichner              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2
path                    \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  de-DE
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {616d3a9c-30e2-11eb-a77d-e462554dec9e}
displayorder            {616d3aa1-30e2-11eb-a77d-e462554dec9e}
                        {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 30

Windows-Startladeprogramm
-------------------------
Bezeichner              {616d3aa1-30e2-11eb-a77d-e462554dec9e}
device                  partition=E:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10 MUSIC
locale                  de-DE
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence        {616d3aa2-30e2-11eb-a77d-e462554dec9e}
displaymessageoverride  Recovery
recoveryenabled         Yes
isolatedcontext         Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=E:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {616d3aa0-30e2-11eb-a77d-e462554dec9e}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard
quietboot               Yes

Windows-Startladeprogramm
-------------------------
Bezeichner              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10 MAIN
locale                  de-DE
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence        {616d3a9e-30e2-11eb-a77d-e462554dec9e}
displaymessageoverride  Recovery
recoveryenabled         Yes
isolatedcontext         Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {616d3a9c-30e2-11eb-a77d-e462554dec9e}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard
hypervisorlaunchtype    Auto

--- Update #3: screenshot of boot selection screen ---

screenshot of boot selection screen

rough translation: SELECT OPERATION SYSTEM Windows 10 MAIN will be started in xx seconds

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  • You could improve your title to make clear you are talking about 2*Win10's and not 2*UEFIs. And when you say "two instances" in your first sentence, you should say "two win10 instances".. You could try removing one of the normal looking instance from the option menu. Then see what happens. Also, the options menu you see, if it mentions a windows version and another windows version, then surely it's not from the UEFI , though the way you write your question, you make it sound like it is.
    – barlop
    Dec 2, 2020 at 21:07
  • Thanks for trying to improve my question: in fact I had a hard time thinking of a "catchy" title. Fact is: I did a dual boot install with 2 different Win10 instances using UEFI instead of BIOS boot because I felt that this would be the option to go here. The blue UEFI selection screen is indeed listing both Win10 versions. If those aren't coming from UEFI what other source could be? I'll update my question with the output from a bcededit result, maybe that helps. I'll try the "remove entry" test one of these days, thanks for the idea Dec 3, 2020 at 10:20
  • a screenshot would help.
    – barlop
    Dec 3, 2020 at 17:29
  • sure, it's uploaded; it's in German but I added some rough translation Dec 3, 2020 at 19:00
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    If there is a way then you'd have a much steeper learning curve. I still use windows 7.. but apparently with windows 8 and windows 10 have some funny features/idiosyncracies to get your head around howtogeek.com/262325/… e.g. this guy superuser.com/questions/1604497/… got confused regarding simply shutting his computer down. I know a guy that got mad when Win98 went to XP.. Then madder with Win7 and switched to Mac OSX and he loves it.
    – barlop
    Dec 4, 2020 at 12:46

1 Answer 1

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That's because the blue boot selection screen isn't really a bootloader - it's Windows in disguise.

One of your Windows instances boots into the OS selection screen. If you select the same instance, it will appear to load almost instantly because it's actually already loaded. Selecting another OS will cause a reboot with another OS configured to boot just this single time.

If you don't like this behavior, disable bootloader GUI using msconfig.

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  • That makes perfect sense. Before I try, and just to be sure: I assume I could return if I don't like the outcome of that? Dec 3, 2020 at 12:04
  • Yes, just undo the setting.
    – gronostaj
    Dec 3, 2020 at 12:05
  • unfortunately it did not have the expected effect: set the msconfig option under >> boot >> no GUI start (free translation from the German "kein GUI-Start"). Rebooted >> blue selection screen is still showing. Boot into the 2nd Windows instance, checked msconfig there >> that flag was already set here. Sad, sounded ao easy ;) Still thanks for the idea Dec 3, 2020 at 12:22
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    @barlop I think you're missing the crux of this answer (or maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying - if that's the case, please clarify!). In Vista and 7 the OS selection was done in bootmgr, before the OS booted. This has changed with the introduction of GUI in Windows 8. bootmgr always boots Windows 8 to display the nice graphical OS selection screen. This screen is a part of Windows, not bootmgr. If another OS is selected, Windows reconfigures bootmgr to boot the other OS just once next time and reboots. Otherwise it continues the startup.
    – gronostaj
    Dec 4, 2020 at 6:49
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    I don't think GRUB can boot Windows directly yet, it chainloads the Windows bootloader. You could try rEFInd though, I'm not sure how well that would work but it's worth a try.
    – gronostaj
    Dec 4, 2020 at 12:29

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