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New "Boot Menu" carries advanced options traditionally associated with keystrokes

Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) operating systems have long had an old faithful series of commands driven by the function keys -- "Press F2 for setup", "Press F8 for boot options", etc.  These commands vary a bit from personal computer to personal computer, but they've always been there.

I. Windows 8 Boots Too Fast, But Microsoft Has a Clever Fix

With Windows 8, Microsoft faced an interesting dilemma -- it was booting too fast.  With the push to speedy solid state drives and the BIOS replacement UEFI, many Windows laptops were completing the entire boot cycle in six seconds.  The F8 window, for example was shrunk to 200 ms.  Microsoft's research indicated that even its fastest typists could only reliable sustain a 250 ms keystroke rate -- in other words, even for the fastest-fingered engineers, being able to hit the Boot Menu correctly became a game of chance, and for mere mortals it became an excercise in frustration.

Microsoft has responded by incorporating a major change in the latest build of Windows 8 -- the Boot Menu.  This menu is accessed either by restarting your computer in a special way (for situations where you're modifying hardware or making other changes) or automatically visited whenever Windows 8 encounters an error state and is forced to shutdown.

Meet the Boot Menu:

Windows 8 Boot Menu

The menu is loaded with basic options, such as multi-boot or boot from a devic.  It also features advanced options.  Selecting "Troubleshoot" --> "Advanced Options" dumps you in just the menu that allows you to dig deeper and solve hardware issues.

Windows 8 Advanced Options Windows 8 Startup Settings

II. Arriving at the Boot Menu

The automatic arrival at the base menu on an error state self-diagnoses for false-positives.  For example many more power-hungry Windows 7 laptops would run out of juice and die until a wall outlet was reached (often these issues were triggered by hardware-specific hibernate bugs).  

While Windows 8 hopes to eliminate these kinds of inconveniences, if they do happen, Windows 8 will at least learn to do a normal boot by watching the user's decision to press "Continue" every time.  This is different from Windows 7, which typically displayed an advanced boot menu every time Windows 7 improperly shut down, with no selective learning.

There are three ways to get to the Boot Menu outside the automatic error states:
  1. The new flag '/o' to shutdown.exe

    Windows 8 boot command prompt
     
  2. Press 'Shift' when clicking the "Restart" option seen when the "Power" button is clicked.

    Windows 8 Power Boot Menu
     
  3. Visit "PC Settings" --> "General" tab, and click "Restart Now" under the "Advanced Setup" option

    Windows 8 Boot PC Settings
Windows 8 has received a lot of flak for allegedly focusing too much on touchscreen devices and neglecting traditional desktop and laptop usability.  However, changes like this show Microsoft's newfound spirit of radical reinvention and dramatic usability improvements aim to extend to the realm of traditional Windows functionality.  The new Boot Menu seems pretty hard to find fault with, though some will surely missing hammering away at their "F2" and "F8" keys.

Windows 8 is currently in its "Consumer Preview" (beta) testing phase.  The OS is expected to launch in October and is free for anyone to try in early form.

Source: Microsoft


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How about holding down the shift key?
By rcsinfo on 5/23/2012 10:55:43 AM , Rating: 4
Back in the Win98 days you held down shift when booting to go to safe mode. Seems like that would be a good solution here, just hold down a key as you turn the computer on to get to the boot menu.




RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By kleinma on 5/23/2012 10:57:10 AM , Rating: 2
And on that nice shiny tablet running Windows 8?


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By Argon18 on 5/23/12, Rating: -1
RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By mattclary on 5/23/2012 11:08:59 AM , Rating: 3
That wasn't safe mode, it just kept extra startup items from loading. In other words, it would start you with VGA only or limited driver support, it just kept automatically starting programs from starting.


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By mattclary on 5/23/2012 11:09:47 AM , Rating: 2
edit for typo:

would NOT start you with VGA only or limited driver support


By rcsinfo on 5/23/2012 1:39:16 PM , Rating: 4
That's in Windows XP. Windows 98 had the shift for safe mode feature.


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By Lugaidster on 5/23/2012 11:02:40 AM , Rating: 1
I thought the same thing :/.

In any case, screw Windows 8. I'm not the kind of whiny child that complains about change, but there's different kinds of change (Good, Bad and meh). Windows 8, for me, is bad change for the desktop. Don't like the metro model for applications and don't like the UI. The latter I can forgive somehow, the former I can't. Furthermore, because regular applications can't run inside Metro, I'd be having to switch between UIs. It breaks the whole experience.

I think they should've just stayed with Metro UI in the tablet space.


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By kleinma on 5/23/2012 11:09:23 AM , Rating: 1
You just have to look at metro as a new app launching UI. You can honestly stay in the desktop all day without going into the start screen once. I don't know why people bitch about the start menu getting an overhaul, in the simplest of terms, that is all that has happened here. If you spend that much time in the start menu on a daily basis, then you are not using Windows the most productive way.


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By Chadder007 on 5/23/2012 11:44:57 AM , Rating: 4
Agreed, to me its counter productive as far as multitasking goes. I don't like apps taking up the full screen with Metro at all.
This OS is a major step backwards for productivity on a desktop.


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By ShaolinSoccer on 5/23/2012 1:39:21 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I don't like apps taking up the full screen with Metro at all.


You need to watch this video since you don't know what you're talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I&feature...


By PaFromFL on 5/24/2012 8:00:55 AM , Rating: 3
The video makes it clear that Microsoft is trying to force a one-size-fits-all solution for touchscreen and mouse/keyboard interfaces. Bad idea.


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By Tony Swash on 5/23/12, Rating: -1
By Flunk on 5/23/2012 11:55:27 AM , Rating: 2
Macs use an outdated proprietary version of EFI, newer Windows systems (Windows 7 x64+) support the newer UEFI standard. Microsoft doesn't want to do what you suggest because it would require adding a pause to the bootup process (like Mac OS currently does).


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By retrospooty on 5/23/12, Rating: 0
RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By KPOM1 on 5/23/2012 1:03:25 PM , Rating: 2
Just because Apple does it one way doesn't mean that it's wrong. Adding a half-second pause doesn't seem like much, and might be better for these sorts of situations.


By xdrol on 5/29/2012 4:38:55 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Just because Apple does it one way doesn't mean that it's the only way to do.


FTFY.


RE: How about holding down the shift key?
By Tony Swash on 5/23/12, Rating: 0
By retrospooty on 5/23/2012 1:46:42 PM , Rating: 2
"Wow - who rattled your cage :)"

Rattled? I am laughing... You crack me up man! All hail Apple!


By Natch on 5/24/2012 8:10:45 AM , Rating: 1
If Microsoft thought you needed that feature, they would give it to you!

Now where have we heard that before?? ;)


By DennisB on 5/24/2012 6:51:09 AM , Rating: 2
Isn't this a no-brainer?
The Bios size stayed more or less the same while the CPUS got faster, of course at some point the time window would shrink.
As a good engineer they should have foreseen and dealt with it before release by creating an artificial delay or confirmation window. Advertising this "feature" is like Win8 has nothing else to offer.


no faults?
By zephyrprime on 5/23/2012 12:43:52 PM , Rating: 2
Hard to find fault? It's pretty easy to find fault if you ask me. You have to boot into windows first before doing this. Why can't you just hold down a key from the get go to get boot options? It should be a shift, ctrl, or alt key so that the key buffer won't be overrun.

Also, this article sounds like it was written by a microsoft marketing guy. Give me a fricken break. DailyTech is going down the toilet.




RE: no faults?
By InvertMe on 5/23/2012 1:59:25 PM , Rating: 2
I think they did it the correct way. Given the infrequency one uses interrupts I think it's better to keep the boot sequence as clutter free and fast as possible.

Also where are you going to press that key on your tablet? Better to keep the experience uniform.


RE: no faults?
By sigmatau on 5/23/2012 4:02:13 PM , Rating: 2
I thought the same thing. How often does the average user use the boot menu? Never?


RE: no faults?
By MGSsancho on 5/23/2012 5:40:29 PM , Rating: 2
Power users will just may a desktop shortcut with the /o flag so the can use other OS options or they will use grub2


Musings on boot up time.
By drycrust3 on 5/23/2012 2:39:04 PM , Rating: 3
When I bought my new computer it had Windows 7 on it, so naturally I was curious as to how fast it would boot compared to my old "XP generation" computers. I was amazed that the new computer booted up in just seconds.
I removed the Windows 7 OS and installed Ubuntu (with the Gnome-Classic desktop), and, as a casual observation (i.e. not checked against a clock) the boot up time is quicker than the Windows XP generation computers, but not quite as fast as the computer would have booted up if I had left the Windows 7 on it.
While "boot up time" is one important parameter in using a computer, I believe there are other parameters which are more important, e.g. the ability to avoid malware, the speed to display a webpage, etc. To me, the extra seconds lost in boot up time are easily compensated for by the security I have when surfing on the net.




By WalksTheWalk on 5/23/2012 4:44:17 PM , Rating: 2
Under Windows XP I bootedmy laptop every morning because un-docking it would BSOD half the time. When I got into the office, after I booted up and logged in I could get a pop, take a pee and by the time I returned it was almost usable. With Windows 7 I'm ready to work within about 10 seconds after logging in. I miss Windows XP that way. :(

On a side note, the only time I reboot my Windows 7 laptop or desktop is when updates are applied that require reboots. They're just put to sleep otherwise.


Too fast for interrupts
By TeXWiller on 5/23/2012 1:35:38 PM , Rating: 2
So the Windows 8 is starting so fast it ignores most types of interrupts. I hope then that the polling goes like hell, as well. ;)




Nope.
By CZroe on 5/23/2012 4:52:21 PM , Rating: 2
"Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) operating systems have long had an old faithful series of commands driven by the function keys -- "Press F2 for setup", "Press F8 for boot options", etc. These commands vary a bit from personal computer to personal computer, but they've always been there."

Those messages are not from Microsoft's "operating systems." They vary because they are from different BIOS makers, which vary from board to board. The "Boot Options" menu from the BIOS is often triggered by the same key as the boot menu on Windows (F8), but it doesn't make is "Microsoft's."

The BIOS prompt is during/after POST before the bootloader is run from the MBR on the drive. You'd see it even without a drive and even without a MS product ever touching your machine.




UEFI replacing BIOS?
By croc on 5/24/2012 9:21:44 AM , Rating: 2
I was always under the impression that UEFI ran on top of the BIOS, not as a replacement...

But seriously, my BIOS takes ~20 sec. to finish. I am not sure that it could accurately do a memory test in 6 sec., and then to boot some form of drive, load whatever code it takes, .... 6 sec.? I'd have to see it, with my own stopwatch... (that's ALMOST as fast as my old PDP 11 booted, after a power cut.)




By Shenaya on 5/30/2012 5:34:54 AM , Rating: 2
A fast boot time on window 8 hardly sounds just like a problem, but it's. But question is why. The startup may be so quick that you whiz by well-known sign post that motivate for input...
Read full article here,
http://www.geekscover.com/2012/05/window-8-boot-qu...




This Is a Good Problem to Have
By Arsynic on 5/23/12, Rating: 0
"Spreading the rumors, it's very easy because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim its credible because you spoke to someone at Apple." -- Investment guru Jim Cramer











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