Solved Dual Boot OS Selection Timeout Stops Counting Down After 2 or 3 Seconds

I may have asked this a year or two ago. Trying once more...

I configured a dual boot scenario on a laptop today. I started by installing a clean copy of Windows 11 23H2, then BitLocker encrypted the OS drive.

Next, I setup a second copy of Windows 11 to a VHDX on that same partition.

I can run both OSes just fine, but I always have to select the OS to boot manually. If I set a timeout, the countdown stops after about 2 seconds.

As an example, suppose I set the timeout before the default OS is started to 10 seconds. The timer will display 10, 9, 8 and then stop counting.

So, I thought that I would try a really short timeout, like 2 seconds. No go. It refuses to accept a timeout of less than 3 seconds.

This feels a lot like this is being done on purpose. Anyone have any idea why, or better yet, anyone know of a solution?

NOTE: I've experienced this on multiple machines now, so it's not some oddity on just one system.

Does it do that regardless of the timeout value you select, like trying 30 seconds?

johnlgalt said:

Does it do that regardless of the timeout value you select, like trying 30 seconds?

Click to expand...

Yes, no matter what timeout I specify, it stops counting down after about 2 or 3 seconds.

That is extremely odd. I don't dual boot, so I cannot easily test this without setting one up. But, I do have plenty of .VHDX I could add into a boot config to try, without actually booting into them and breaking something in the VMs lol.

Let me see about testing it on my end.

johnlgalt said:

That is extremely odd. I don't dual boot, so I cannot easily test this without setting one up. But, I do have plenty of .VHDX I could add into a boot config to try, without actually booting into them and breaking something in the VMs lol.

Let me see about testing it on my end.

Click to expand...

That's okay, John. I appreciate it, but don't go through all that trouble. I'm in the process of trying an alternative approach right now. I suspect that it may have to do with my use of BitLocker, but I'll report back what I find out.

Thanks again for help!

I just changed the choice time (via Msconfig) setting it to 20 seconds and it works fine
I don't have Bitlocker active

I finally have a solution for this. I was actually obsessing over the issue the past few days. I had to use a slightly different method. Rather than installing the secondary copy of Windows to a VHD, I had to create a whole new partition for that installation. It's not quite as elegant, but once I figured out all the ins and outs it turns out to be very serviceable and works just fine for my needs.

I have never setup a .vmdk as a second OS before, I have always used a physical drive or a partition, so I have never encountered this issue before.

Good to know, thanks.

@trumpy81,

If you are not using BitLocker, dual booting with the second OS deployed to a VHD is a great solution. I notice that you referenced a VMDK. Let's be clear that I am referring to a VHD (specifically a VHDX file). There are several advantages to this:

1) No extra partitioning is needed

2) It occupies much less space. You can make the VHD so that it expands only as space is needed. You don't have to provide all the space up front as you would need to do if deploying to a separate partition.

3) Cleanup is ridiculously easy. If you no longer need the 2nd OS, go into MSCONFIG and delete the second OS from the boot menu, then simply delete the VHDX file. Done!

4) It is also extraordinarily easy to setup.

@hsehestedt
Yes, I realise you were referring to a VHD (VHDX) file, but the concept is similar to a .vmdk file.

I can certainly see the benefits to using a Virtual HDD rather than using physical media, I've just never had the need/desire to do so before and I certainly was not aware of any issues in doing so.

At least now I know that a) it can be done b) expect there to be an issue with the countdown ... lol

So thanks for that once again

trumpy81 said:

@hsehestedt
Yes, I realise you were referring to a VHD (VHDX) file, but the concept is similar to a .vmdk file.

I can certainly see the benefits to using a Virtual HDD rather than using physical media, I've just never had the need/desire to do so before and I certainly was not aware of any issues in doing so.

At least now I know that a) it can be done b) expect there to be an issue with the countdown ... lol

So thanks for that once again

Click to expand...

Actually, the issue with countdown seems to only happen when I introduced BitLocker into the mix. If you don't need BitLocker, all is fine.

Just to close out this thread now that I have more information...

The problem seems to be limited to specific machines that I have. These are older machines, and I can only guess that maybe the UEFI firmware is at fault here.

I found a few workarounds to the issue.

First, you can switch from the graphics-based boot menu to a text-based menu. The timeout works properly then. The disadvantage to this is that you won't get the advanced options that you get from the graphical menu.

Another alternative is to still use the graphical interface and set the timeout to zero seconds. Then you won't get stuck at the boot menu waiting for a response from you, in fact, you won't see the boot menu at all. If choosing this option, you can press F11 repeatedly during boot. That will bring up the advanced options in graphical mode, and you can then choose the option to boot another operating system which takes you to the same boot menu screen you would see if the timeout was not set to zero. Note that F11 apparently does not work on all systems, however, it is working on all the systems that I tried it on.