Change Default Operating System In Boot Menu In Windows 10

With Windows 8, Microsoft made changes to the boot experience. The simple text-based boot loader is now disabled by default and in its place, there is a touch-friendly graphical user interface with icons and text. Windows 10 has this as well.

In a dual boot configuration, the modern boot loader shows a list of all installed operating systems. After the specified timeout, if the user has not touched the keyboard, the default operating system will be started. You might want to change the boot entry which is used by default. Let's see how it should be done.

Change Default OS In Boot Menu Using Startup Options

To change the default operating system in the boot menu in Windows 10, do the following.

1. In the boot loader menu, click the link Change defaults or choose other options at the bottom of the screen.
2. On the next page, click Choose a default operating system.
3. On the next page, select the OS you want to set as the default boot entry.

Tip: You can boot Windows 10 into Advanced Startup Options, and pick the item Use another operating system. See the following screenshots.

The same can be done with the built-in console utility "bcdedit".

Change Default OS In Boot Menu Using Bcdedit

Open an elevated command prompt and type the following command:

bcdedit

This will show the list of available boot entries, as follows.

Copy the value of the identifier line and execute the next command.

bcdedit /default {identifier}

Replace the {identifier} portion with the required value. For example,

bcdedit /default {88240e47-5ebf-11e7-98a8-b123c369fcff}

Change Default OS In Boot Menu Using System Properties

The classic System Properties applet can be used to change the default OS in the boot menu.

Press Win + R keys together on the keyboard. The Run dialog will appear on the screen. Type the following into the text box and press Enter:

SystemPropertiesAdvanced

Advanced System Properties will open. Press the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery section on the Advanced tab.

Select the desired item from the Default operating systems drop down list:

Change Default OS In Boot Menu With MSCONFIG

Finally, you can use the built-in msconfig tool to change the boot timeout. Press Win + R and type msconfig in the Run box.

On the boot tab, select the desired entry in the list and click the button Set as default.

Click the Apply and OK buttons and you are done.

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