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I am looking for a solution in which the boot order can be altered in Windows 7 without accessing the bios, restarting the machine, and booting up from a CD-ROM. All with little to no input from users.

Is this possible, or would I be a massive flaw?

I am hoping that a .bat file would be able to do this so it will work on more than just Windows 7.

EDIT: I have seen a command called BCDEdit but I can't see how I would switch the boot order.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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BCDEdit will allow you to manage the OS boot priority AFTER the bios boot sequence. This is in case of multiple OS sharing the same bootloader (multiboot).

The boot order is the following :

  1. bios tries each configured device in it's boot order list

  2. when a devices hosts a bootloader (BCD for Windows post Vista, Lilo or Grub for linux, ...) it launches it.

  3. the launched bootloader displays its boot menu with all the availables OS configured in it.

    If you have one only one OS installed on your computer, it the bootloader may not display any menu and directly launch the OS.

In the latest versions of Windows (8.X+) you may not change the boot order but you can boot into a recovery mode that allow to boot on DVD/USB or to repair the system.

But for me the modification of the boot order from the OS is a big security issue as any malicious software could play with it.

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  • I thought that would be the case. Thanks for your answer.
    – Terry
    Feb 19, 2016 at 13:03
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Yes, it is possible. You can use the bootcfg.exe tool.

For more details see:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/boot-options-in-efi-nvram

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/overview-of-boot-options-in-efi

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