Windows 10: Can I stop Win10 hijacking my dual boot options?

It's 2016, so there's a very simple, easy solution to this. Virtualize. Very little reason, if any, to dual-boot anymore.

 

Yes, VMs are nice. I have 7. Can be a little daunting for normal user, not that dual is not. Home doesn't support Hyper-v, so VMWare or something. Hyper-V and other V machines are incompatible in same OS, so I dual (quad) partly for that reason, among others. But, that's all way off course for the OP's issue. Back to topic........

 

VMWare Player and VirtualBox are completely free, and eliminate the OP's issue. Much easier, in my opinion, than messing with bootloaders.

 

fine. ask if he wants to.

 

Are each of the OS's on different drives, or both are on the same drive as different partitions ?
Do you use Legacy BIOS or UEFI ?

Post a maximized/resized screen print of Disk Management showing all info using these instructions:
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of - Windows 10 Forums

Have you tried EasyBCD (free) to see what it shows ?
EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies
You can download the free version without entering name or email.

 

I'm with David, I have multiple OSs on separate drives but BIOS is set to boot from W10 SSD, Each time there's a need to reboot due to an upgrade or update, W10 "Hijacks" boot process until finished. In my opinion, that's a good thing although I set OS boot default to start after 5 seconds.
Only way to delay process is to boot from another disk with other OS on it by changing boot device from bios.

 

If I'm not mistaken, once you use the "install updates and shut down" option, Windows Update is set in motion and should be left alone to finish its job. If you don't let it finish, you wind up with a mess like you seem to have.

 

Thanks for the responses, and I'll reply to some of the specific points:

They're on different physical drives. I'll post a Disk Mgmt pic if it helps things along after I post this cluster of replies.

I don't like to have all my eggs in one OS basket. And anyway, my dual boot enables access to a dependable frozen-in-time 2013 install of Win7 that can run things that are broken in Win10. Of course, that Win7 OS is blocked from the Internet, to prevent any updates throwing a spanner in the works. Could I trust a virtual one to act the same way? I think not!

I'm not overclocking. And since W10 was "working on updates" and telling me it'll take a while, we can't call it an RSOD. Is there such a thing as a Red Screen of Life?

Having searched for (and found) accent color, I see that red was indeed selected, for some reason. So, thanks for that!

By using the "install updates and shut down" option, rather than the "install updates and restart" option, I'd hoped to be able to defer further use of Win10 until the next morning. With previous Windows, the install package would be downloaded, and when one next fired up that particular OS, the package would then get unpacked and integrated with the OS. But I always had a choice of whether or not to fire up that particular OS.

 

Reason why I said "not recommended". I only do it when I'm absolutely, positively forced to. *Smile

 

Yes, please post a snippet of your Disk Management.

I generally set up dual boot on one physical drive. For me, it's just simpler. Have you looked at Brink's Dual Boot tutorial; not so much for how to dual boot, but as a troubleshooting tool? Windows 10 - Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Windows 8 - Windows 10 Forums

There are several boot options tutorials in the Tutorials section, and this one by Brink may help you get things working right again:

Advanced Startup Options - Boot to in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

 

@SonicHawk ... could you please take a moment and recap what your current issue is, if you still have one, and what it is you are trying to accomplish. It looks like, for the most part, everyone who has posted agrees nothing was "hijacked", it simply did what it was told to do. Your stated preference for wanting to remain on a dual boot system should guide your response, and the replies of others.

2 screenshots would help.

1. Disk Management, full screen, showing all your drives and partitions.
2. MSCONFIG boot tab display. Shows all bootable OS's and partition locations. It will look similar to this:





Do them both while booted to the same OS, otherwise the drive letters may change.

When you get a chance, please post back. Thanks, TC

 

If I'm understanding what the OP asked I don't see a problem and why screenshots are necessary. As I read it they just want to know if they could delay Windows 10 from updating when they restarted their computer because they wanted to boot into Windows 7 instead. They never got a choice and had to wait until Windows 10 updated.

 

If that is correct, and it may be, fine. There did not seem to be an end to this thread. If @SonicHawk is ok now and all is well, that is great! But I have not seen that posted. I simply asked him to recap, and if booting was a problem of some sort, the screenshots would help. It does no harm to communicate with him. It's his thread. He has the say as to when it's finished.

 

If they are both installed on separate physical disks, should be able to chose W7 disk from the BIOS.

 

That was my view, too.... which is why I used the slightly emotive term "hijack" in my forum thread title.

Anyway, the 620 x 280 upload limit is a bit of a data crunch, but I shrunk the original Disk Management window as much as I could, without losing any info. Hopefully this screenshot will show some things. Such as, I like a bit of headroom when saving stuff to disk! And if this post works, then I'll try an msconfig pic as a sort of encore.





And on where I currently am? ... well, it's an irritation that I can't rely on being to see the dual boot options if I start my computer from cold. But there are loads of people on this forum having far worse problems than that. So, hey, I'm not going to get too twisted up about it.