I installed windows 11 and the Macrium boot menu that I had on Win 10 remained

ltsnow · Mar 9, 2023

I am running Windows 10 and decided to install Windows 11 for fun. I didn't do a clean install, but just installed it from within windows. I choose to Keep Nothing. It never asked me where it was going to install so I assume it just installed on the C: partition and didn't touch the other partitions.

Now the interesting thing. When I started up Windows 11 the Macrium boot menu was still there. I figured if I actually tried to use it nothing would happen because Windows 11 had overwritten the C:drive where the Macrium boot menu lives. But low and behold when I clicked it it opened the rescue environment and I was able to restore an image (which I have on my other internal hard drive). How is this possible? How did the Macrium boot menu survive the Windows 11 installation?

SIW2 · Mar 9, 2023

It is an entry in the bcd store on the system partition.

the files are in %systemdrive%\boot

ltsnow · Mar 9, 2023

SIW2 said:
It is an entry in the bcd store on the system partition.

the files are in %systemdrive%\boot

Thank you, but how did the boot folder survive the installation? Isn't the systemdrive the C: drive?

Try3 · Mar 9, 2023

ltsnow said:
I didn't do a clean install, but just installed it from within windows

You used the In-place upgrade procedure [aka Repair install procedure] just as you might previously have done to update from one Windows 10 Version to another.

ltsnow said:
how did the boot folder survive the installation?

You have not installed Windows, you have rewritten its system files.

ltsnow said:
I choose to Keep Nothing

You chose not to keep your installed applications and not to keep your own data files.
That's all your decision affected.

ltsnow said:
When I started up Windows 11 the Macrium boot menu was still there

Yes, it would be.
Nothing you have done will have affected it.

Denis

ltsnow · Mar 9, 2023

Try3 said:
You used the In-place upgrade procedure [aka Repair install procedure] just as you might previously have done to update from one Windows 10 Version to another.

You have not installed Windows, you have rewritten its system files.

You chose not to keep your installed applications and not to keep your own data files.
That's all your decision affected.

Yes, it would be.
Nothing you have done will have affected it.

Denis

Thank you very much. That answers my question.