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Date:      Tue, 10 Dec 2002 12:47:22 -0500
From:      "Jud" <judmarc@fastmail.fm>
To:        "Jerry McAllister" <jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu>, "Sergey Niunco" <potzilov@softhome.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Boot Menu question
Message-ID:  <20021210174722.635DF1B79A@server2.fastmail.fm>

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On Tue, 10 Dec 2002 09:26:21 -0500 (EST), "Jerry McAllister"
<jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu> said:
> > 
> > Hello!
> >  
> >  When I start my system I have a choise of 2 OS's:
> >  
> >  F1: ???
> >  F3: FreeBSD
> > 
> >  The question is how do i change "???" to "Win2000"?
> 
> This is a frequent question, so there is a lot in the archives on it.
> But, briefly, the boot manager was written before W2K (and W-XP, etc)
> and so, doesn't have a name for them.  It can boot them as long as
> they use a "standard" boot sequence.  It just doesn't know what to
> call them.  
> 
> To change that, either you or someone else will have to modify the 
> boot manager code to add recognition of those, or you have to 
> install a different boot manager that knows about them.  There
> are several, some rather overblown.  I see one called 'grub'
> mentioned quite often, but haven't used it.
> 
> It would be nice if someone who know something about the insides of
> these things got around to adding recognition of W2K and W-XP and 
> maybe a couple of others hint hint hint.   (But, I doubt that I will
> ever learn enough or get around to it)

The problem is that a number of operating systems use what Microsoft
calls NTFS.  
Of course there are NT/W2K/XP.  IBM's OS/2 uses the same filesystem and
calls it 
HPFS.  And I think QNX may use (or have used) this filesystem as well.

So someone would have to allow for user-configurable choices or some sort
of automagic 
determination of the "brand name" on the filesystem within the extremely
restricted 
space available in the bootloader.  Rather than spending overmuch time on
this, the 
responsible committers have concentrated on making sure the bootloader
does its 
fundamental job correctly.  For those who would like the brand name of
the filesystem 
to appear in the boot menu, a section of the FAQ at FreeBSD's web site
outlines how 
this can be done with the NT bootloader, or as Jerry mentioned, Grub is
available in 
ports.

Jud

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