Change boot options in Windows 2000 Professional

Windows 2000 Professional uses a text file, Boot.ini, in the root folder of the boot drive to define boot options. The settings in Boot.ini determine the menu options that appear when you start the system, as well as how long the menu stays on the screen before the default boot option executes. Boot.ini is a hidden, read-only system file, so you’ll need to configure folder options to display hidden files and not hide protected operating system files in order to view and modify it.

You’ll find two sections in Boot.ini — [boot loader] and [operating systems]. The timeout value in the [boot loader] section determines how long, in seconds, the menu displays before the Windows 2000 boot loader executes the default boot option. Adjust the value to your liking or set it to 0 to boot without a menu.

Each line in the [operating systems] section defines an operating system or operating system option. You can add or modify settings in this section to boot other manually installed operating systems or cloned copies of Windows 2000 Professional.