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Despite the poor documentation BCDedit is pretty versatile.
Here is a link to the full help for BCDedit command-line options http://www.thecomputermanual.com/bcdedit-windows-7-and-vista/
Recently instead of a bcdedit dual boot, I needed a winpe multiboot dvd, or any multi boot DVD. So I started studying BCDedit. As you will see in the image below My USB key or DVD boot disk has the option to start up one of 4 images depending on my needs.
So a quick synopsis is necessary to better understand BCDedit.
BCDedit edits the contents of a file called bcd. In order to edit the contents of this file you need to know where it is. For example in the image above I used the command : “bcdedit /store i:\boot\bcd” to get the results in the image. If you simple use bcdedit, you will get the contents of the default bcd which is contained in the System_drv partition. The system_drv partition usually has no letter assigned to it. Returning to the bcd file since we want to edit the one we are going to use on a CD or DVD we have to point to it with the “/store” switch and then the path to where the file is. Ergo “bcdedit /store i:\boot\bcd”. “i” is just the drive letter in my particular case, in your case it could be different.
It is better to start with an already existing store. It is simpler to edit it than create it from scratch. The best solution is to start with a store from the Windows Automated Installation Kit or WAIK or the new windows ADK. But for that you have to install WAIK and then you have to use extra command lines to setup your WINPE environment. It is simpler just to download the Malware boot disc Malwarebytes boot cd and then you can extract it with 7zip and use that existing folder structure. You will find the BCD store in the boot folder. Then you can use BCDedit to edit it’s contents. You should have something similar with the image below.
If you use the image I provided you with links to then you might end up with the same {UUID} “Universally Unique Identifier” or the big a.s.. number in hexadecimals {7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f}.
The next command you need to issue is: bcdedit /store i:\boot\bcd /copy {default} /d “Whatever other windows name you want”
As you can see at the first yellow indicator after we issued the copy command, It generated a new UUID. This is the identifier by which the second boot option will be identified. The first one is the {default} marked with the red line. So you need to copy the new generated uuid and put it in a notepad text file, because you’ ll need to use it to change the device to point to a diferent name than boot.wim. Name it boot2.wim or something you’ll be able to make the correlation between the the description “Whatever other windows name you want” and boot2.wim file. But do try to keep it simple.
Now we need to alter the device and the osdevice.
So for the device we issue the following command: bcdedit /store i:\boot\bcd /set {44417451-3ef9-11e2-b235-0010c6b1edc8} device ramdisk=[boot]\sources\boot2.wim,{7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-00476eba25f}
Now use the up or down arrow key on the keyboard and alter the command to: bcdedit /store i:\boot\bcd /set {44417451-3ef9-11e2-b235-0010c6b1edc8} osdevice ramdisk=[boot]\sources\bootvnc.wim,{7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-00476eba25f}
In the last command we just change the device to osdevice. Also you need to take note that the secondary UUID remains the same UUID as in the {default} option.
Correlate the screenshots above to double-check and see that the UUIDs of the wim files remain the same. Only the identifier UUIDs change.
From BCDedit dual boot to a winpe multi boot just repeat the process. Check out the image below for a four WIMs multiboot DVD. Of course you can have bcdedit dual boot as well if that’s only what you need.
