Arch Linux

p0wder2

Member

From: Phoenix

Registered: 2013-12-06

Posts: 6

Confused about Syslinux chainloading Windows

Hi.  So this is my first install on a physical machine and I've chosen to use Syslinux as opposed to GRUB.  I love it and everything works just fine.  However, the following wiki entry confuses me:

Note: For Windows, this skips the system's own boot manager (bootmgr), which is required for a few important updates (eg.) to complete. In such cases it may be advisable to temporarily set the MBR boot flag to the Windows partition (eg. with GParted), let the update finish installing, and then reset the flag to the syslinux partition (eg. with Windows's own DiskPart).

While I'm no expert, it's my understanding that BOOTMGR is required to read the BCD store, display the boot menu (if requested), and initialize either Winload or Winresume.  It's also my understanding that the VBR of the Windows boot partition ("System Reserved") loads BOOTMGR into memory by default.  So, if Syslinux is indeed loading the VBR of this partition (which I'm pointing it to), and Windows is loading successfully (and I'm able to access the boot options with the F8 key), then I'm having trouble understanding how it "skips" BOOTMGR.  I would greatly appreciate some clarity, thanks.

My setup (if helpful):
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 / Arch Linux dual boot
Legacy BIOS
MBR disks

lsblk -f output

NAME   FSTYPE LABEL           UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                                
├─sda1 ntfs   System Reserved 0ECEE3B1CEE38EF1                     
├─sda2 ntfs                   CC38F07438F05F40                     
├─sda3 ext4                   96204d92-41f1-4036-bf11-994e7717a47a /boot
└─sda4 ext4                   c689ba45-9716-45f1-bb05-51585ed582ce /
sdb                                                                
├─sdb1 swap                   93e06ef1-2a0a-4566-b109-c21348b952ea [SWAP]
└─sdb2 ntfs   shared          73BECE563635C853                     /mnt/shared
sr0

syslinux.cfg

UI menu.c32
PROMPT 0

MENU TITLE Arch Boot Menu
TIMEOUT 50
DEFAULT arch

LABEL arch
	MENU LABEL Arch Linux
	LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
	APPEND root=UUID=c689ba45-9716-45f1-bb05-51585ed582ce rw
	INITRD ../intel-ucode.img,../initramfs-linux.img

LABEL archfallback
	MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback
	LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
	APPEND root=UUID=c689ba45-9716-45f1-bb05-51585ed582ce rw
	INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img

LABEL windows
	MENU LABEL Windows 7
	COM32 chain.c32
	APPEND boot 1

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