Mastodawn

also thanks to @TheQuinbox for the name lol, because i myself am bad at those.

Seedy!4d ago

@Aryan No readme or build instructions?

@cubic soon, mw i can upload the file if you want. To be fare i am bad at writeing that stuff, but i will get around to it.

Seedy!4d ago

@Aryan What I usually do is take a readme I already have and get AI to write it in a similar style.

@cubic yeah i could do that, i've done that in the past.

@cubic the thing is that this is my first c++ program of my own, even though i've worked on other things.

here is a direct download link: https://github.com/aryanchoudharypro/bootswap/releases/download/0.1.0/bootswap.exe

Tech Singer 3d ago

@Aryan Thanks, and this works on Win7, just FYI. The only odd thing is that I'm seeing "unknown device" with no other info for certain devices. Is there a way to get more data?

@techsinger not sure, it should at least show you file paths if nothing else.

Cleverson 3d ago

@Aryan @techsinger Thanks a lot for this; it's a wefibootmgr for Windows.

Majid Hussain 3d ago

@Aryan
love your name by the way :)
does this work on the arm platform?
this is a snapdragon processer
Processor Snapdragon(R) X - X126100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) CPU, 2956 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
oi!
noticed, that sounds like you kinda?
Oryon
it's my first rodio with the arm platform hence my query
is this an installer?
thanks for this
what can you do with this?
is this like easybcd?

Majid Hussain 3d ago

@Aryan
opened this i get windows boot manager uefi network boot ipv6 and networkboot ipv4...

@mhussain yeah those are the efi over network options which some manufacturer's have

Alex Hall 3d ago

@Aryan Dumb question... As someone who doesn't speak C++, what do I do with this? I didn't find a make file, and that's about all I know to look for.

@alexhall i'll soon write build instructions and such, for now you can download this here: https://github.com/aryanchoudharypro/bootswap/releases/download/0.1.0/bootswap.exe

@Aryan Thank you.

@Aryan Thank you so much for doing this. I've wanted a utility like this since like 2019.

Tech Singer 3d ago

@Bri @Aryan same here, though somewhat longer I think. I don't remember when I first needed this, the only reason the need grew a bit less is that I could get a sighted person remotely for the screen with a few days notice.

@Aryan I am going to ask a very stupid question, why, because I can. is this a way that you can temporarly boot from a thumb drive if you wanted too? also do you know if this works for all bios's, or how does this work? ok, that is more like two questions. smile.

@JamminJerry I think it works for all bios at least all the uefi once. As for the drive question, it may or may not show up but if it does, you can just dragg it to the top, and when you reboot with a drive plugd in, it will boot from that

@Aryan well I did download it so I planned on checking it out, but just thought I would ask some questions as I didn't see this info on the github page. smile.

@JamminJerry that gh page is blank haha, almost, i'll get around to adding some info soon when i am properly awake.

@Aryan ok, I am looking at it now with my screen reader, and this is very accessible so far. my last question I think I have is I do see a thing in the list that says

UEFI:Removable Device

could I move this to the top of the list, and if it sees a removable drive it would boot from that, otherwize it would then continue down to

Windows Boot Manager - \EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI

which in my case is my c: drive where windows is. is this how this would work? if so that would be awesome as right now, I have to reboot the computer, go into my bios, go to the boot menu, find the removable drive, and press enter on it, and save it. this is only a one time temporary thing. what your program looks like it might do is set the order that it looks to boot from, so if I move the removable one to the top, it should check that first, and if it doesn't find anything, then it should move on to the microsoft one. am I understanding this correctly?

@JamminJerry yup that's how its gonna work.

@Aryan now that is awesome! so hopefully, I won't need eyeballs anymore when I want to boot from a windows setup thumb drive.

@JamminJerry yup

@JamminJerry just don't forget to hit the apply button, it should catch your drive on the next boot then.

@Aryan I did hit apply. I made sure to look threw everything after I made the change. it said success that it was updated, so I should be good to go. thanks again for writing something like this.

@JamminJerry @Aryan so for some reason, when I load this, i see this, twice. Windows Boot Manager - \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi 1 of 4 and Windows Boot Manager - \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi 3 of 4 and I presume, this is for booting from the hard disk, Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk 4 of 4. but i'm not sure what I'd use ot boot from USB, I presume EFI USB Device 2 of 4 would boot from USB media?

@munchkinbear @JamminJerry their should be an UEFI:Removable Device option. Though for somee reason windows sometimes doesn't show it to bcd in which case sometimes plugging a drive helps to get the entry. Also i think your boot manager is duplicated or something. or do you have diffrent versions of windows installed?

@Aryan @JamminJerry this is a clean install, I've done nothing to it from the factory

@munchkinbear @JamminJerry strange

@munchkinbear @JamminJerry can you run bcdedit /enum firmware from an administrator cmd and tell me what you get their?

@Aryan @JamminJerry since I'm still here
spopp> bcdedit /enum firmware

Firmware Boot Manager
---------------------
identifier {fwbootmgr}
displayorder {bootmgr}
{977025b8-157c-11f1-9643-92f0ff050a57}
{ba1d3101-2361-11f1-a853-806e6f6e6963}
{977025b9-157c-11f1-9643-92f0ff050a57}
timeout 0

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
isolatedcontext Yes
default {current}
resumeobject {52b3cfd1-157d-11f1-9643-92f0ff050a57}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Firmware Application (101fffff)
-------------------------------
identifier {977025b8-157c-11f1-9643-92f0ff050a57}
description EFI USB Device
isolatedcontext Yes

Firmware Application (101fffff)
-------------------------------
identifier {977025b9-157c-11f1-9643-92f0ff050a57}
description Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk
isolatedcontext Yes

Firmware Application (101fffff)
-------------------------------
identifier {ba1d3101-2361-11f1-a853-806e6f6e6963}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description Windows Boot Manager
isolatedcontext Yes
spopp>

@munchkinbear @JamminJerry yup, as you can sea you have duplicate bootmgr entries. also, i think the usb thing mite be it. which brand is your pc?

@Aryan @JamminJerry it's an HP omen gaming laptop. :-)

@munchkinbear @JamminJerry then it is most sertenly the efi usb device

@Aryan @JamminJerry the closest I get to removeable media is EFI USB Device.

@munchkinbear @JamminJerry i'm not sure about that one, this app just gives you whatever the bcd givs it. but it could be that

@Aryan @JamminJerry I've got a thumb drive with a bootable image on it, I'll play with it later. I should really try and sleep. :-)

@munchkinbear @JamminJerry alright!

@munchkinbear @JamminJerry ok, one thing that mite help you is doing the following. plug the drive, then boot the pc, then open bootswap, then if a new entry gets created related to removable media, dragg it to the top by alt+up arrow, press apply, then restart. it should boot from the drive.

Tamas G 3d ago

@Aryan ok not gonna lie this is cool as heck. I've been wanting this, as external Linux drives I plug in show up as firmware entries in BCD it's just a matter of swapping, if this can go beyond BCD to the UEFI level, even better, just haven't seen a good way since I know WMIC is dead these days argh. But great on you if you found a solution!

Seedy!3d ago

@Tamasg @Aryan It would surely save having to type reagentc /boottore and reboot the system.

Cleverson 3d ago

@Tamasg @Aryan Yes; it's close to a wefibootmgr for Windows.

Ethin Probst 4d ago

@Aryan I definitely would, I hate bcdedit

@draeand working on it...

garo 4d ago

@Aryan Probably, but depends on a lot of things. Cross platform or Windows only? Will it use some Windows hack that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't - because...Microsoft - or directly interact with the BIOS or a tool that can? Will it be permanent or temporary? Etc. But generally sounds good.

@garo windows only using bcdedit

garo 4d ago

@Aryan Hmm. Permanent though?

@garo yup unless microsoft magicaly decides to change bcdedit lol