Win11Pro changes UEFI boot order -- on its own

Mark Phelps · Mar 26, 2023

Yeah, you're going to start out by telling me that Win11 does not change UEFI boot order, the UEFI firmware does this. And, that second part is undoubtedly true -- but I've had this happen time after time now, and after removing drives from my motherboard, I've narrowed it down to Win11Pro making the changes.

This is what is happening ...

I have five OSs on this PC, three Windows (W11Pro, W10Pro, Win11 Insider Beta) and two Linux (Mint and Ubuntu). I use most of these on a daily basis, so I am regularly restarting the PC and useing rEFInd boot menu to select the next OS. I use this because it scans the drives automatically and if I insert a USB drive, shows an entry for that, allowing me to select it.

You will ask, why don't I just press F11 or Esc -- because that stopped working some weeks back. Pressing either of these results in a blank, black screen. So, I had to learn workarounds to get to the UEFI settings from inside the Windows OSs.

When I am using any OS other than Win11Pro and I restart, the rEFInd menu comes up and I choose the next OS.

When I am using Win11Pro and I reset the PC automatically reboots into Windows 10 -- every time. If I go into the UEFI settings from inside Win10, they are correct, with the rEFInd setting at the top of the list. So, I then exit Win10, restart, and rEFInd is then displayed, whereupon, I enter Win11Pro.

When I look at the UEFI settings from inside Win11Pro, the Win10Pro entry has been moved to the top -- every time. I have not done this on my own. I then reset the boot order to have rEFInd at the top, save and restart -- and then, the rEFInd menu appears.

When I exit and restart from ANY of the other OSs, this does NOT happen. It only happens when restarting from Win11Pro. I have done complete shutdowns from Win11Pro and it does the same thing -- reboots into Win10Pro.

I have looked at the UEFI boot order settings from inside each of the OSs and the only one where the order has been changed is from inside Win11Pro.

So, that leads me to the conclusion that the UEFI boot settings are getting changed upon exit from Win11Pro.

I have no idea at all how this is happening. And, to make matters worse, this is not new -- it has been going on for a while now -- months, in fact. But it has only been a real issue since the use-a-key-to-enter-the-UEFI-settings feature quit working on the ASRock motherboard recently. Before then, I rebooted, held down the Esc key, got into the UEFI settings, and reset the UEFI boot order. Now, I have to go through several reboots to get to the UEFI Firmware Settings option inside Windows -- and that takes a lot longer than just pressing a key.

I've tried changing the mounts for the NVMe drives on the motherboard, but that makes no difference. It's still always Win10 that boots after shutting down Win11Pro.

And yeah, it's not a "show stopper" enough to force me to spend $200 on a new motherboard -- but it is a PAIN and I would like to stop it from happening.

Any ideas?

glasskuter · Mar 26, 2023

See this thread. Is this what happened to you? Win 11 boots sucessfully, can't find its own BCD store it has used during boot

Mark Phelps · Mar 26, 2023

glasskuter said:
See this thread. Is this what happened to you? Win 11 boots sucessfully, can't find its own BCD store it has used during boot

I ran bcdedit and it shows two boot loaders -- Windows 11 and Macrium Reflect System Recovery -- which are the same things that EasyBCD shows. So, it looks like it is pointing to the right boot loaders.

UDATE: Let me remove the Win10 NVMe stick from the PC and see if Win11Po still boots. If it does, that would mean to me that Win11 is using the correct BCD. It will take me a while to do this.

TVeblen · Mar 26, 2023

I'm wondering if your problem has more to do with rEFInd than with Windows 11 Pro.
I was looking at it's webpage here:

The rEFInd Boot Manager

And noticed the notice at the top left warning of a problem with Apple systems due to Apples use of a "preboot" partition or setting.
Could something like that - unique to Windows 11 - cause rEFInd to not load at boot?

TVeblen · Mar 26, 2023

If it were me I would want to know what is going on with Asrock's boot menu key. That seems to be the real problem here.

Now on my system, I need to have the reflexes of a ninja to hit the F11 key at just the right second to get in. If I hit it too soon I get that black screen freeze. I have to press the reset button on the case and try again. One half second too late and Windows boots. It's annoying.
I'd need to slow down the POST process to give more time, but I don;'t have an appropriate setting in UEFI to do it. I tried enabling the OEM Logo screen, but that didn't help with the boot time.

Mark Phelps · Mar 26, 2023

TVeblen said:
If it were me I would want to know what is going on with Asrock's boot menu key. That seems to be the real problem here.

Now on my system, I need to have the reflexes of a ninja to hit the F11 key at just the right second to get in. If I hit it too soon I get that black screen freeze. I have to press the reset button on the case and try again. One half second too late and Windows boots. It's annoying.
I'd need to slow down the POST process to give more time, but I don;'t have an appropriate setting in UEFI to do it. I tried enabling the OEM Logo screen, but that didn't help with the boot time.

You're right about ASRock -- but I already RMA'd one motherboard and this new one is no better. I think I will have to change brands down the road -- but I don't have the $300 needed for the MSI board I want.

Mark Phelps · Mar 26, 2023

UPDATE 2: OK, I removed the Win10 NVMe stick from the PC and it rebooted directly into Win11 Beta. I went into that, changed the UEFI boot order to move rEFInd to the top, and restarted. The rEFInd menu came up. I booted into Win11 and restarted. The rEFInd menu came up -- again. Despite repeated reboots between Win11Pro and Win11Beta, the rEFInd menu comes up every time. So, with these two Windows OSs in the PC, the UEFI boot order is not being tampered with.

What I THOUGHT would happen is that when I restarted from Win11 Pro, since Win11 Beta initially booted by default, the UEFI boot order would be changed to put it first and rEFInd menu second. But that did not happen.

It only does that when Win10 is present in the system -- and I believe I confirmed that Win11Pro is booting from the correct boot record because it boots OK when both of the other Windows NVMe sticks are removed from the PC.

badrobot · Mar 26, 2023

Mark Phelps said:
You will ask, why don't I just press F11 or Esc -- because that stopped working some weeks back. Pressing either of these results in a blank, black screen.

Are you talking about Win 11 insider doing this? I had this problem and hopefully it is just a temporary bug.
I only have 2 OS drives on my PC. Early this afternoon when I did an in-place upgrade of an old Win 11 Insider OS, the boot order changed and gave priority to the Insider OS drive. If I try to boot up on boot menu with the Insider OS as primary drive, it gives me a black screen so I have to manually press the restart button and it goes through the boot menu when the F-key is pressed. When I changed the priority back to the main OS drive (non-Insider OS), it was fixed. No more black screen on boot menu attempt.

NavyLCDR · Mar 27, 2023

Have you turned off Windows fast startup in all of the Windows installations?

Turn On or Off Fast Startup in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off fast startup in Windows 11. There are three startup modes in Windows: Cold (traditional) Wake-from-hibernation Fast Starting with Windows 8.x, the default shutdown and restart scenario has been updated and named fast startup. Fast startup...

www.elevenforum.com

Mark Phelps · Mar 27, 2023

badrobot said:
Are you talking about Win 11 insider doing this? I had this problem and hopefully it is just a temporary bug.
I only have 2 OS drives on my PC. Early this afternoon when I did an in-place upgrade of an old Win 11 Insider OS, the boot order changed and gave priority to the Insider OS drive. If I try to boot up on boot menu with the Insider OS as primary drive, it gives me a black screen so I have to manually press the restart button and it goes through the boot menu when the F-key is pressed. When I changed the priority back to the main OS drive (non-Insider OS), it was fixed. No more black screen on boot menu attempt.

No, I'm talking about Win11Pro doing this. The black screen on startup is before any OS is displayed.

Mark Phelps · Mar 27, 2023

NavyLCDR said:
Have you turned off Windows fast startup in all of the Windows installations?

Turn On or Off Fast Startup in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off fast startup in Windows 11. There are three startup modes in Windows: Cold (traditional) Wake-from-hibernation Fast Starting with Windows 8.x, the default shutdown and restart scenario has been updated and named fast startup. Fast startup...

www.elevenforum.com

Yes, that is disabled on all the Windows installs.

badrobot · Mar 27, 2023

Mark Phelps said:
No, I'm talking about Win11Pro doing this. The black screen on startup is before any OS is displayed.

Which OS is your boot priority?
My observation is, if the Win11 Pro Insider OS is the first priority, I have the same problem.
But if I change the boot priority to the non-Insider Win11 Pro, I don't get the black screen.

Mark Phelps · Mar 27, 2023

badrobot said:
Which OS is your boot priority?
My observation is, if the Win11 Pro Insider OS is the first priority, I have the same problem.
But if I change the boot priority to the non-Insider Win11 Pro, I don't get the black screen.

The boot priority is rEFInd first, then Win11Pro. The boot order does not matter, pressing any key while booting causes a black screen.

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't want to revisit the black screen issue -- as I covered that at length in another thread, and that is not the issue here -- the issue is the UEFI boot order being changed inside Win11Pro without me doing it.

Mark Phelps · Mar 31, 2023

UPDATES: Now, the same thing is happening inside Win11 Beta -- it is moving Win10 boot to the top of the UEFI boot order and rEFInd to second.

SO, now BOTH Win11 installs are doing this -- none of the others.

I can further confirm this because when I boot into the UEFI settings from inside either Win11 install, the Win10 boot has been moved to the top of the UEFI boot order and REFInd to second.

badrobot · Mar 31, 2023

You still believe it's Windows 11 doing it? I think this is an isolated and not a common issue.

jimbo45 · Apr 2, 2023

badrobot said:
You still believe it's Windows 11 doing it? I think this is an isolated and not a common issue.

@Mark Phelps

Just run bcdedit and see what's the priority OS. Windows only sets by default (on multi Windows OS installs) the latest install. Simply to revert either change the priority OS using the bcdedit command or if you see the blue Windows boot menu you can change the default from there.

Otherwise it must be some 3rd party app you are running as Windows won't change the default except for the condition stated above. Also if you install Linux on the same HDD/SSD as Windows GRUB (the Linux boot loader) won't do anything to the Windows boot.

Cheers
jimbo

Mark Phelps · May 22, 2023

Sorry for the late response ...

But the PC is not doing this anymore!! Now, when I reboot into Win11 and then restart, the rEFInd menu comes up all the time.

I have not changed any settings or apps -- this just stopped on its own.