Choosing Whether To Boot In Mac Or Windows

By Keith Bundy, 1 August, 2015

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

I have a Macbook made in 2014. Recently I had our IT folks where I work install Bootcamp so that I can run both operating systemI am able to run both Mac and Windows quite well.

However booting up is a bit of an adventure. I have been told that, shortly after turning on the machine,, I need to hold down the Command key for a few secods and will receive the boot up choices. Then I have to remember which way to arrow to get Mac or Windows come up. Is this the only way to make the choice of which system to boot into? Or is there a way to make this area speak? Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Options

Comments

By JDawg on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 14:07

It's actually the "option" key you hold down at startup. Zion as you hear the startup chime, hold down option dfor about 10 seconds or so.

By Usman on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 14:07

Under system preferences, you can also have your mac boot into windows. Its under start up disk.

By Nathan Stocking on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 14:07

I find that using the keys is easiest. Here are the options:
Using the startup disk window in system prefferences allows you to choose what you want to use as a default when turning on. If you want to use the other one, simply press the option key as you hear the startup chime. Then, you can press the correct arrow key (it's left for me) and press enter to boot into windows. By the way, you shouldn't have to hold the key for ten seconds (it's more like one for me).

By Usman on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 14:07

I tried doing this originally but found that this method was unreliable. I don't know how many instances in which I would hit option and hit left arrow and return to find that nothing seems to be happening. Frankly, just setting it to boot into either windows or mac seems to do the trick.

By Keith Bundy on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 14:07

In reply to by Usman

I like this line of thinking. I still don't understand how one would switch between systems if one needed to do so.I'm really not btrying to be dense here; I just can't seem to understand how to switch between operating systems. I also have not yet found a guide that discusses this. Am I missing something?Thanks for your help.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 14:07

Before any operating system loads regardless which one, the system's boot manager loads. It does so if there is a single operating system; the user simply does not interact with it. With this considered, there is no screen reader available at this level. A boot manager is a very low-level utility. Anything lower than this to my knowledge is firmware. For Windows the boot manager is called BIOS and elsewhere it is called EFI. The Option (⌥) key method is unreliable because an unintended key can be pressed by mistake or an intended key can be pressed more than necessary which results in the same undesired outcome. The convoluted but more reliable method is to launch System Preferences | Startup Disk and select the intended disk. Caveat emptor: subsequent reboots will default to the most recently selected disk. Boot Champ is a better method because the selection is temporary. Select Windows, boot into Windows, reboot using Windows and revert to Mac OS. I once used Boot Champ for months till I discovered Boot Runner. Boot Runner is much more flexible and works well in the enterprise sector. It layers on the log-in window and though the graphical user interface is not perfect it is usable. They know about this because I informed them thusly after which they replied they would fix the minor hindrances.

In essence, Boot Champ and/or Boot Runner are the two most reliable and usable third-party programs for this and I recommend both. To each his own but I personally use Boot Runner.

By splyt on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 14:07

Objectively:
1- From Mac how do we choose to boot in windows next time? And from windows how do we choose to but on Mac next time? And how can we keep booting the same system until we decide to change?

Marlon

By jack on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 14:07

Another option, when you're done with windows, boot into recovery mode. Command+r as the mac boots up. Whether windows or mac, the same bootmanager is used so recovery can be use if need be. Once in recovery mode, restart into os by quitting recovery mode, and it'll ask you to either restart or change the startup disk before you restart. Change the startup disk to Macintosh hd. Hit restart. You should be in osx now.