Tech question. How do I turn off the boot start-up menu?

Factual Questions
1

Tech question. How do I turn off the boot start-up menu?

I was having trouble (Windows 98) and decided to turn the boot menu on using “hidden” Microsoft tool TweakUI.

Great. Now I have a stable system again, but I can’t get the menu to go away. It adds a countdown from 10 for every boot up.

I’ve tried several tools to undo it, and none seem to work.

It can’t be a setting in the Registry, because it appears before that is referenced. Same with Autoexec.

It seems to appear when the Config is loading, but I see nothing in my config file.

Any ideas?

2

It’s in MSDOS.SYS
Usually in the C:\ or C:\Windows directory

BootMenu=X
X=1 on
X=0 off

BootMenuDelay=Y
Y=number of seconds to display menu

or just delete both entries.

3

My MSDOS.SYS file looks like this


;FORMAT
[Paths]
WinDir=C:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=C:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=C
UninstallDir=C:\

[Options]
BootGUI=1
DoubleBuffer=2
AutoScan=1
WinVer=4.10.1998
4

Look for another one in the root directory.
It may be hidden.

I have one like your version in C:\Windows, and another, with the lines from above in C:\

The second one (C:\MSDOS.SYS) is the one that is used.

5

I used your tip and searched for “bootmenu” within files in c:\ and c:\Windows

This led me to a file called MSDOS.SYS.FIXED
and a utility called xteq.exe

So, now I can boot up without the menu.

But :confused: I got a side effect - much of the text on the board now appears as little squares. I guess a font died.

Well, at least I have a new thing to worry about. I may actually have to read the instructions for xteq.

6

I remembered that TweakUI had a Font Repair tab, so now I’m back in business all around.

Thanks!