Question Regarding Startup

Hi everyone,

Recently I installed Windows 7 on my Macbook and its working prefect, not a complaint at all. I can boot into Mac and Windows with no problem by holding down the "Option" key at startup and selecting which OS I want to use.

But as for my question, is there a way for the computer to automatically go to the screen that you get when you hold the Option key down? Instead of booting into Mac (my preferred OS) on its own? I regularly play games on my Windows partition and its a bit annoying to keep having to hold the Option key down anytime I want to use Windows.

I only use Windows to game and Mac for anything else, so this would be really helpful since I use them both equally throughout my day. Thanks for the help.

Welcome to the Mac Forums.

Not sure I understand what you wish to do, but.... You can set the default operating system that your Mac boots to upon startup two ways:

1. In OS X Snow Leopard: System Preferences, Startup Disk. Select Boot Camp as default.

2. In Windows 7: Control Panel, Boot Camp. Set Windows 7 as the default.

I think the OP wants to be able to go to the "boot loader" screen which pops up each time you boot with the Option key pressed. He wants that to be the default so you don't have to hold the key down each time. I think I have seen something about this before but it may take a while to find it.

Slydude said:

I think the OP wants to be able to go to the "boot loader" screen which pops up each time you boot with the Option key pressed. He wants that to be the default so you don't have to hold the key down each time. I think I have seen something about this before but it may take a while to find it.

Click to expand...

That is exactly what I am looking for actually, but I couldn't think of a name for that screen that appears when you hold down "Option". If I just google searched "boot loader" would it give me the results I need?

Only by holding down the Option key unless you are prepared to try some unofficial hack:-


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXtuAnccttg

KingGriffin said:

That is exactly what I am looking for actually, but I couldn't think of a name for that screen that appears when you hold down "Option". If I just google searched "boot loader" would it give me the results I need?

Click to expand...

OK, sorry I misunderstood what you wanted. Thanks to Slydude I now know. What you're looking for is "rEFIt". It's free and will do exactly what you want. Read the instructions carefully before installing.

It seems that after using windows for a few days, I don't use it quite as much as I thought that I would. I appreciate all the help and if my gaming becomes more frequent on the windows partition I will definitely consider downloading rEFIt for the future reference.

Thank you for your responses!

KingGriffin said:

It seems that after using windows for a few days, I don't use it quite as much as I thought that I would.

Click to expand...

Funny how things seem to work out that way with a Mac, huh?

Cheers