EasyBCD is free (for non-commercial/personal usage), very powerful and extremely user-friendly utility (completely get rid of the cumbersome and lengthy commands in Windows built-in BCDEdit, instead, just a few mouse clicks), which has become the only designated tool that can fix the startup problems of dual/multiple systems (Windows + Windows/Linux/Mac OS/BSD... ) instantaneously.

As a system booting manager, not only can EasyBCD repair the boot menu, also enables a computer to start up from a bootable file. That is to say, we are still able to install an OS even without a CD/DVD drive equipped. In addition, EasyBCD also provides many other practical and convenient features, like Automated MBR Backup. In this case, users can save each change of system startup options, and select the appropriate backup to make a quick recovery when a start-up failure happens.

In the course of long-term use, AppNee lives through a variety of combinations between Windows XP/7/8/8.1/10 and some popular Linux distributions (including Red Hat Linux, Fedora, Cyborg Linux, Kali Linux, BackTrack Linux, Veket, Tiny Core Linux, Android-x86...). But for each of Multi-OS boot failures, the eventual solution and steps are all the same:

  1. Boot into Windows PE, use DiskGenius to fix Windows MBR - in order to be able to boot into Windows again
  2. Under Windows, use EasyBCD to add the existing boot partition of Linux as a new boot menu. All done!
Just two steps above, you can repair almost any boot failures of Windows & Linux dual-boot OS combinations with ease. I can responsibly tell you - there is no much easier or more rapid method, even if you are a Windows or Linux expert! For AppNee, the recently fixed dual-boot OS combination with boot failure is: Windows 8.1 + CentOS 7, of which the CentOS 7 uses the GRUB2 - which will forcibly overwrite the Windows' MBR sector and cause Windows can't start up!

My laptop doesn't support the installation of a Mac OS, so we can't do similar guarantees. But after all, Mac OS is also a Unix-like OS, therefore EasyBCD's effect on it is predictable.

Key Features

Feature Intro
Boot anything Windows, Linux, Mac, & BSD! Boot both from and into USB drives, ISO images, virtual disks, and more.
Boot anywhere Create bootable USB sticks with repair utilities that you can take with you anywhere.
Protect against disaster Create entries to boot into recovery utilities or safe mode to prepare for a rainy day.
Painless editing Add, rename, remove, configure, and reorder entries at whim.
Solve difficult problems Use EasyBCD to troubleshoot Windows, back up and repair the boot loader, and more.
Powerful scripting with NeoGrub You'll have the power to hide partitions, change active flags, and create complex boot scenarios.

Edition Statement

AppNee provides the EasyBCD Community Edition multilingual full installer, as well as portable versions for Windows 32-bit & 64-bit.

Prompts

  • You'd better always use the latest version, in case EasyBCD could not support the OS you're using and result in a boot failure
  • If want to boot a Windows 7, you'd better use EasyBCD 2.0+
  • You can set the low-level boot options in 'Advanced Settings' tab. For example, if you need to boot Windows XP and Windows 7, then you should install EasyBCD under Windows 7 and set Windows XP's boot option. Otherwise, a boot failure will occur and Windows XP can't start

Related Links

Download URLs

License Version Download Size
Community Edition (freeware) v2.3.0 reserved 1.80 MB
v2.4.0 2.13 MB
(Homepage)