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Famous last words; 'this should be an easy question'


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OK, I just built a system with Windows 7 as my primary OS (because I know it and most of my work is 7) and used a separate hard drive and installed OS X (iAtkos L2 because I need to learn OS X). If you use the boot menu or set either drive to boot first both work fine. If you use F8 and choose Win 7 it too boots fine.

 

All I want is for Chameleon to come up with a menu instead of going directly to OS X. Ideally I'd like a slight delay, and then boot to Windows 7 by default if OS X is not selected in that few second delay period. As it is, it just goes to OS X and never shows a menu if you aren't there to his F8 at exactly the right time, or do so before Chameleon with the BIOS option.

 

You'd think this would be ultra easy but I have Googled, searched read and read tons of useless and/or over complicated info, and unfortunately most info is for multiple partitioned single drives, or involving some other arcane stuff I don't understand as a Mac OS X dummy.

 

This is my org.chameleon.Boot.plist (I'm guessing a simple edit there will fix it?)

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string></string>
<key>Boot Graphics</key>
<string>Yes</string>
	<key>Quiet Boot</key>
	<string>No</string>
	<key>Timeout</key>
	<string>5</string>
<key>npci</key>
	<string>0x2000</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>UseKernelCache</key>
<string>No</string>
</dict>
</plist>

 

So this would be great, or if it's for some reason no possible, then I know it can be done with EasyBCD on the Windows 7 side, trouble is, the ONLY info I can find on that is for single hard drive systems. Any help is greatly appreciated!

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OK I figured out how to get the menu delay after finding the Chameleon documentation. Trouble is, telling it which drive to default to on boot has no effect, default is always OS X. I've tried it with the drive label in quotes, with the UUID and with drive and partition numbers and still OS X always is default.

 

Any clue why that may be?

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Don't boot Windows 7 with Chameleon, it breaks S3/S4 sleep and you will not be able to install Service Pack 1.

 

Some work has been done to fix these issues, I haven't tested it myself and I don't know if the fixes have already made it to the main Chameleon source. Here's the development thread: http://forum.voodoop...pic,2091.0.html

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It boots fine with Chameleon, which is installed on the OS X hard drive. The separate physical drive with Windows 7 (not XP, which is dead, and those who don't treat it as such are silly IMHO) has had no change made to it, but if you select it when booting from the OS X drive, it boots just as it should. The only issue was a fix to keep the Windows time from being all wrong.

 

The trouble is, I'd like to tell Chameleon to boot the windows drive by default and I've added the proper code to the org.chameleon.Boot.plist, but still defaults to OS X. That is the only issue. If anyone can help me with that I am good to go aside from sleep mode not working.

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Keep in mind that the order of disks is relative to where Chameleon is installed, not your BIOS order or your physical drive order.

 

BINGO!

 

That was it; now it behaves almost perfectly. I suppose if the one last thing I wish it would do is impossible, well, it's really me just being nitpicky; when you put in the key for "Instant Menu", so that it will show both OS options, that seems to disable the timeout countdown making it so that you have to hit enter to boot, and it just hangs until you do. If you take that key out, it will only show the default boot OS unless you hit a key. I suppose that would be OK if it's the only way, but ideally what I'd like is for both choices to show, but for my countdown to happen so that if I boot Windows (which takes much longer) it will just continue with the boot with no attention, and if I boot OS X I have to hit the arrow over and then enter. I just want both options visible on the chameleon screen without stopping the boot countdown. Can it be done?

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No, there is no way to do that in current Chameleon.

 

It does get requested quite often, maybe one day someone will implement it.

 

What you could do in the meantime is modify the theme you are using so that Chameleon appears to be doing what you want. Even if you're not artistically inclined it should be simple enough to make a new image with both a Windows and an OS X icon in it, and have the theme use that image for your Windows drive. bingo.

 

Visit the themes sub forum over at voodooprojects for more information on how to edit Chameleon themes.

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