EasyBCD: Edit Vista's boot loader with this simple to use tool

Create Multi-boot systems with Windows, Linux and MAC

As the Dual boot saga comes to a close, I wanted to talk about one more tool that really helped me to put it all together. Anyone who is a longtime Windows guy can remember the boot.ini text file that we used in order to change boot order and the timeout settings. Although this was easy to use it was also really insecure as well. With the introduction of Windows Vista came a new boot loader and a new tool to edit the file as well call BCD edit. Well BCD edit is a command line tool and can be a bit of a headache to manipulate.

Now I know all the command line commandos are going to call me soft. Let me just say I have nothing against command line management and I am a huge fan of command line utilities. But there is a place for it and the boot loader is not a place where I think command line is a necessity.

Thanks to the folks at NeoSmart Technologies we can manipulate the boot record easily with a tool called EasyBCD. NeoSmart offers EasyBCD as freeware which is makes this an even better find. The first thing to note about EasyBCD is that it is a GUI interface which makes it quite a bit easier to change settings for multi-boot systems.

EasyBCD also allows you to boot not only into Windows, but other operating systems as well, So if you have the desire to create a multi boot system for Linux, MAC or maybe you want to build test systems with multiple versions of Windows. Easy BCD supports every version of Windows from Windows 95 on up.
The tool also includes advanced options for tweaking the boot records. By setting DEP for protection of just the Windows core or all applications, you can also fix boot records; uninstall the boot loader (used for booting into XP) and create a backup of the boot loader.

Download EasyBCD and give a it a try. This easy to use tool will make life….well… easier.

• Dual Boot systems