Set Windows as Default OS when Dual Booting Ubuntu

This article is published by Praveen thappily, Calicut, Kerala. If you find any problem or mistake in this page please inform me. Comment on pravymon@gmail.com

                This page is for Ubuntu new users. If you install Ubuntu after Windows installation, At the starting type of your PC you can see GRUB loader. If you not select windows using arrow keys, Ubuntu will load. If You want Windows at first please do following steps. Thank you for reading this blog. I got this information from different websites and people. I dedicate this page to them………..

Set Windows as Default OS when Dual Booting Ubuntu

To make this change, you'll first have to boot into Ubuntu, and then run the following command:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Find this section of the file:

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not change this entry to 'saved' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system. default 0

                  The important line is the last one. You will need to change that number 0 to match the Windows boot section. Typically it's always going to be 4 on a default dual-boot configuration. Change this value to 4, and then save and reboot your machine. You should go into Windows instead of Ubuntu automatically.
Note: The blocks at the bottom of the file match the items in the menu. You can change this value to match whichever item you want as default, just remember that numbering starts at 0.

1. May 10, 2008 8:20 pm

Raouser

hi there everyone. im new in linux and installed ubuntu. i just wanted to know what is the syntax of doing that command on how to change the default OS
thanks Praveen thappily

2. May 10, 2008 8:45 pm

john

i already got it. thanks i just made a mistake in typing .lst.

3. May 19, 2008 12:35 am

murali

hi,
I tried editing the file thourgh the file browser, but I couldnt open menu list file with write permission. even though i am the only user (owner)

4. June 19, 2008 5:21 am

Neil Young

Hi there…
I am a newbie to Ubuntu / Kubuntu and linux completely. I've installed Ubuntu as dual boot to Windows XP. The installation went smoothly. I've Windows XP on a Sata HDD and I've install Ubuntu on a IDE (Sec. Master) HDD. In addition to this I've got two Data storage disks ie: 1X SATA HDD & 1X IDE HDD.

My problem is that when I restart my PC and want to choose to load Windows XP I get a "NTDLR is missing" message and I've to restart. How do I solve this problem?

Thank you in advance

Regards
Neil

5. July 16, 2008 8:51 pm

Hi Neil,
A quick search of ubuntuforums.org reveals that this problem can have several causes. Here is a link to the most common:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=450329

I hope this helps.

Pravymon

6. September 2, 2008 11:26 am

Nospoon

Murali - you have to open it via terminal, because normal users (yes, even the owner) do not have full permissions. Full permissions are granted only to root, and the simplest way to do things as root is to launch them with sudo.

7. September 4, 2008 12:15 pm

murali

thanks PravySoft. got it working a while back.

8. September 16, 2008 7:46 am

Lauris Ancupans

This helped me out. Thanks!

10. December 14, 2008 9:45 am

Dan L

I went through dozens of websites and this is the only and first one that clearly explained how do fix this issue and it worked perfectly. Thanks a ton Praveen thappily

11. January 3, 2008 8:58 pm

HELP!

Praveen , please help me… I am super new to Linux… I installed Ubuntu on my PC and I am affraid that all of my files are gone. I used to run XP and now I can't find any of my files. Can anyone please tell me how to switch back to Windows just so that I can see my files again???
Thank you so much,

Mali

12. January 22, 2008 4:03 pm

rob

same for me! can find winxp anymore

13. February 17, 2008 6:00 am

fatih

thanks a lot. very clear explanation. seconds i did it.

14. April 13, 2008 8:18 am

Frank H

Thanks for the response so quick. Works Fine

15. September 2, 2008 11:26 am

Satya

I guess this number 4 would quickly go out of sync once you upgrade ubuntu (kernel). That means you will have to keep incrementing this number every time you got a new kernel through update process.

I believe there is a better way, but can't recollect.. Anyone?

16. September 24, 2008 12:05 pm

Jack

Satya: It might be easier and neater to just remove the new kernels entirely.

17. October 7, 2008 1:14 pm

esau

Jack - why would someone want to remove their newly installed kernel(s)? I agree with Satya; there is sure to be a better way to do this, or at least I hope there is. Or you'll need to go LILO. Great little article apart from this minor inconvenience.

18. October 8, 2008 6:50 am

Jack

esau: My mistake, I meant old ones that you won't be using any more.

Regards

19. November 25, 2008 10:08 am

Dave

Surely it is not better to use the following:

default saved

This boots what ever entry has been saved using the command:
savedefault

Window is by default saved using savedefault in a Debian/Ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst

20. December 7, 2008 10:20 pm

Chris

Mali and rob-

It depends on if you used the wubi ubuntu installer or the partitioner/full install. If you used Wubi (Otherwise known as "Install in side Windows") then all of your XP files will be in the directory "/host/Documents and Settings/@@" where @@ is your username. If you used the full install, you have to mount the other partition by going to the "Places" menu on the top panel and clicking on the ## GB media where ## is the size of the XP partition. Then there should be a shortcut to it on your desktop. If this is disabled and the shortcut does not appear, then you can go to /media/disk in the file browser and drag a shortcut out to your desktop.
Hope this helps!

21. December 8, 2008 1:49 am

Mike

any ideas on how to change the boot loader if you where stupid enough to remove Ubuntu???

thx

/m

22. December 9, 2008 11:12 am

Burrows

MIke, not sure if this helps but my ubuntu on this list is shown as :
## should update-grub add savedefault to the default options
## can be true or false
# savedefault=false

## ## End Default Options ##

title Ubuntu 8.10 uuid f4151833-890f-4e9d-b6bb-84faf6f992fd
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-9-generic root=UUID=f4151833-890f-4e9d-b6bb-84faf6f992fd ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-9-generic
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.

23. December 20, 2008 6:09 pm

aruhadi

I just cut and paste menu of windows and store it above this:

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=7fd45131-277a-46a7-b01a-bc7eeaf39669 ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
quiet

so become this:

title Microsoft Windows
root (hd0,1) savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=7fd45131-277a-46a7-b01a-bc7eeaf39669 ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
quiet