How to boot to Windows 7 from Windows 8 boot menu without a restart?

Solution 1:

I ran into this a while ago. Basically, the Windows 8 boot loader chains the Windows 7 boot loader after you select it. But because of how Windows 8 handles booting (by loading the OS before showing the menu), it means the computer has to reboot.

The solution is basically to have the Windows 7 bootloader chain to the Windows 8 boot loader, so it only loads it after selecting Windows 8.

Go into Windows 7 and use bcdedit.exe to change your boot loader settings. Or, if you prefer, use a GUI control panel like EasyBCD (my preferred method). This is how I did it.

In here, you can select your default entries and configure your boot loader. Since it's been several months since I've done this, I can't remember the specific steps. However, if you know how to dual-boot, I'm presuming you can figure it out. :) If someone else knows the steps off-hand, or if you figure it out, please edit the steps in here.

There's no need to install any Linux distributions or any other third-party bootloader.

Solution 2:

There are two simple solutions for this issue:

1) Open the Run prompt and enter msconfig, to launch the System Configuration Dialog. In the Boot tab, choose your default OS.

2) In the boot menu, Click on Change defaults or choose other options -> Click on Choose a default operating system and click on Windows 7.