BCDEdit Notes

All of the commands listed in this section are referenced in the built in help topics in bcdedit.exe. The appendices of this guide contains a comprehensive list of these help topics for the following versions of BCDEdit -

DISPLAYBOOTMENU

The BCD boot menu may not be displayed during the Windows boot process - even if a timeout value is specified. If the displayorder element in the Windows Boot Manager object only contains one object (one GUID entry) then this item will automatically be loaded without displaying the menu.

It's possible to force the display of the boot menu even if it contains only one entry in the displayorder by setting the DISPLAYBOOTMENU element. The data type for this element is a Boolean value - TRUE (use 1, ON, YES, TRUE) or FALSE (0, OFF, NO, FALSE).

Use the following command syntax to force the display of the boot menu -
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu on[enter]

{fwbootmgr}

The {fwbootmgr} object can be used to modify or display the Firmware Boot Manager menu stored in NVRAM.

To display applications in the Firmware Boot Menu use the following command -
bcdedit /enum FIRMWARE[enter]

The following output was obtained after running bcdedit /enum FIRMWARE[enter] on a Virtual Machine with Windows 8.1 installed -

 
Firmware Boot Manager
---------------------
identifier              {fwbootmgr}
displayorder            {bootmgr}
                        {d606d185-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
                        {d606d186-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
                        {d606d187-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
                        {d606d188-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
                        {d606d189-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
timeout                 2

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2
path                    \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {globalsettings}
integrityservices       Enable
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {d606d18a-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
displayorder            {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 30

Firmware Application (101fffff)
-------------------------------
identifier              {d606d185-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
description             EFI VMware Virtual IDE Hard Drive (IDE 0:0)

Firmware Application (101fffff)
-------------------------------
identifier              {d606d186-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
description             EFI VMware Virtual IDE Hard Drive (IDE 0:1)

Firmware Application (101fffff)
-------------------------------
identifier              {d606d187-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
description             EFI VMware Virtual SATA CDROM Drive (1.0)

Firmware Application (101fffff)
-------------------------------
identifier              {d606d188-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
description             EFI Network

Firmware Application (101fffff)
-------------------------------
identifier              {d606d189-f2b6-11e4-b80a-aaa13d7f1ed9}
description             EFI Internal Shell (Unsupported option)

The following bcdedit commands are supported when editing the Firmware Boot Menu -

 
FIRMWARE BOOT MANAGER

The following types apply only to entries for the firmware boot manager. For
information about data formats for these types, run "bcdedit /? FORMATS".

Boot
====
  BOOTSEQUENCE (list)     Defines the one-time boot sequence.
  DEFAULT (id)            Defines the default boot entry.
  TIMEOUT (integer)       Defines the boot manager time to wait, in seconds.

Display
=======
  DISPLAYORDER (list)     Defines the boot manager display order list.

The following example will change the default timeout to 15 seconds -
bcdedit /set {fwbootmgr} timeout 15[enter]

Multiboot systems may contain more than one boot manager. To ensure that the Windows Boot Manager option is displayed first, use the following command -
bcdedit /set {fwbootmgr} displayorder {bootmgr} /addfirst[enter]

To add a third party Boot Manager option to the boot menu display, use the following command syntax (where {GUID} is the GUID value for the relevant boot manager) -
bcdedit /set {fwbootmgr} displayorder {GUID} /addlast[enter]

To boot a third party Boot Manager option on the next boot only, the BOOTSEQUENCE element can be used with the following command syntax (where {GUID} is the GUID value for the relevant boot manager) -
bcdedit /set {fwbootmgr} bootsequence {GUID}[enter]

novesa/novga

In some scenarios Windows might not boot if a videocard is not available (e.g. on some Servers). See here -

"For a long time I have been using linux PXE scripts to fix servers which dont have any video cards and its worked perfectly until we started getting pushed to use WinPE. If the sled is plugged into the chassis I can PXE boot just fine with either linux or WinPe. The problem however is when we take it back to the troubleshooting station to run diagnostics on it via WinPE it wont work. It loads the image and then fails, i believe because it doesnt have any video. Installing a video card is out of the question. I got it to load temporarily while useing the /quietboot option on the BCD file. However the results are inconsistant. I need to do more to either suppress the video, or alter the conditions so that it doesnt get hung up on it. Any Ideas?"

The poster of the above question was able to overcome this issue by setting the novesa element in the relevant object. Note that the novesa element has been deprecated in operating systems newer than Windows 8 and replaced with novga

novesa

 
novesa [ on | off ]
Indicates whether the VGA driver should avoid VESA BIOS calls.
The option is ignored in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

novga

 
novga [ on | off ]
Disables the use of VGA modes in the OS.
The option is available starting in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

Examples - Part 4

DISPLAYBOOTMENU

{fwbootmgr}

novesa/novga