Windows Boot Manager shows blank screen, has no video

[R Pruitt]

Situation: new Aptio BIOS computer, with or without rEFInd, clone win10 and add the new entry to Windows Boot Manager(WBM) by editing BCD store.

Problem: WBM shows no video. This was presumably true without the second windows installation, but when the timeout is 30 seconds (it must be less or nothing with a single installation) it becomes very obvious. Hit return and Windows will boot.

Possible solutions:

1) Fix the video using an rEFInd stanza: http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/configfile.html#stanzas

2) Make a separate rEFInd entry for each copy of Windows: https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/discussion/general/thread/10a7111a/#a58f

3) Use msconfig.exe from within Windows to choose the next boot.

4) (Blindly) Hit the appropriate keys to get what you want in WBM.

Comments/questions:

1) This whole example is just scary to me, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. My only comment is that the "this forum thread" link on the page cited above is a 404. My situation is dual HDMI video out(only using one, neither shows WBM video, but either shows all other video) with Intel i5200. I can look up the board if needed, it is one of these little NUC type boxes.

2) I did think of doing something like this, but I was thinking multiple WBMs on the same EFI partition. I couldn't find anything about how the BCD store was associated with WBM though. Separate partitions would do it, but kludgy. Optimal would be command line options for a single copy of WBM that would boot different entries, but again I could find out basically nothing about WBM.

3) In Windows, you can run msconfig.exe and change the default windows boot, and then that installation will boot the next time. Also kludgy, but works adequately for me. I did try safe video and no GUI boot, but still no happiness with WBM video.

4) Yeah, if #1 is scary, this is beyond that. For example, I don't want to end up in last known good configuration. Since this is a box that I will eventually be wiping all the current OSs off of, I did try this and managed to boot install #2 when install #1 was the default, so WBM is being booted and there.

Mostly this is for others to find if they are in the same situation, but I would be very happy to hear other solutions, or especially command line options for WBM that will boot a specific OS.

Edit: fixed links by removing periods, I guess one reason to use formatted links due to brain dead forum parsing.

[R Pruitt]

Or 5) Install a working copy of the WBM.

After installing rEFInd in the canonical windows location, \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi, as that is the only thing the BIOS would boot, I then installed Windows 8.1 from a UEFI upgrade media. This overwrote \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi with a working copy of WBM. If the nondisplaying copy of WBM was in \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi, then a new boot loader entry would have been added rather than overwriting the file.