Giving the Boot to Windows Boot Wait
Many things can be done while Windows boots. Some are trivial: toe nails clipped, coffee made, restroom runs ran. Other things I'm sure we couldn't talk about here. Let's just say plenty of cribs and jail cells are now plum full thanks to Windows!
Microsoft is now looking to end the waiting game. Windows 8 promises to boot so fast that we'll all have to find another excuse to commit our trespasses or make whoopee. In fact, the OS will load so quickly that you won't even have enough time to hit the F key to invoke the various boot options.
How do the clever engineers in Redmond get around this? You still have a shift key, don't you? Just hit that when you hit the power button. Or you could even do this once the machine is running  -- all your boot options will pop up via the new (but poorly named) Windows recovery environment called WinRE. WinRE does come up when the system fails to launch and can, in fact, do repairs in Safe Mode.
WinRE will also be used to boot Linux, another version of Windows or load from another device such as a thumb drive.
What do you usually do when Windows loads? Confessions heard and Hail Marys given at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 05/30/2012 at 1:19 PM