How to get Windows Boot Manager GUI to display?

Question

I'm working on a new Windows 10 computer. An older one is running Windows 10 with multi-boot. In that case the Windows Boot Manager displays a GUI which allows various adjustments to be made. I'm trying to setup the new computer to also do multi-boot but it seems I've forgotten how to enable the GUI for Windows Boot Manager.

I'd be grateful for some help finding an answer.

Answer 1

Hello Snookred,

Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

You can follow these steps:

1. Open Command Prompt as Administrator:

Press Win + X and select Command Prompt (Admin) or Windows PowerShell (Admin).

2. Enable Boot Manager GUI: Type the following command and press Enter:

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes

3. Restart Your Computer:

After running the command, restart your computer.

The Windows Boot Manager GUI should now be enabled, allowing you to make various adjustments during boot.

I hope the information above is helpful.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Daisy Zhou

============================================

If the Answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Answer 2

Thanks for offering help.

I did run the bcdedit command with the displaybootmenu option as mentioned. However, this did not result in the GUI being displayed for Windows Boot Manager. Rather it resulted in opening a text screen which looked capable of doing multi-boot but only included the one working selection. Furthermore, I was unable to find any options that would allow for adding bootable devices.

I have noticed something strange which I do not understand. The Windows 10 Inspiron computer, that I previously setup to run in multi-boot mode, displays the drive setup as follows:

However, the Dell Optiplex computer that I'm trying to setup now, to also use multi-boot, displays the drive setup as follows:

The drives that contain Windows 10 systems are identified with volume labels that contain the characters "Win10". What I notice is that on the Dell Inspiron there is a small partition referred to as a Recovery Partition associated with each Windows 10 partition. I don't know how they got created but I'm quite sure I did not do it. However, on the Dell Optiplex there are none of those Recovery Partitions. On the Dell Optiplex the partition designated as the C: drive is the preinstalled Windows 10 partition. The partition designated as G: is the one I created using the DISM command to restore an image created from the C: drive also using the DISM command. In order to create space on the drives for adding new partitions I did have to shrink the original partition using the Disk Management component of the Computer Management application.