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Triple boot with systemd-boot: How to boot Windows 10 and 11 directly without Windows boot manager?

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1 answer
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I recently installed Windows 11 on my home PC in addition to Arch Linux but my wife isn't ready to switch until after her exams, so we keep Windows 10 around for now, leading to a very convoluted booting situation: 1. On boot, systemd boot manager will wait for 3 seconds with a default of Windows 10 if nothing is chosen manually. When choosing Arch Linux, everything is fine and it will boot that, however when choosing Windows: 2. It will boot Windows 11 and only then show the Windows boot manager, which will show Windows 10 and 11 but not Arch Linux (else this could be used directly) and wait 30 seconds and will boot whatever is booted last. If this Windows 11 is chosen, it will start it, however if Windows 10 is chosen: 3. It will restart again, showing systemd boot manager again. Now if one chooses Windows 10, it will finally start it. My goal is to just have the following 3 entries in my systemd-boot menu, how can I achieve that? 1. Arch Linux 2. Windows 10 (default) 3. Windows 11 And chosing either Windows option should boot that directly. I looked around in the /boot/efi/Microsoft/Boot folder but the only .efi files are bootmgfw.efi and bootmgr.efi. ## $ bootctl list
Boot Loader Entries:
        title: Arch Linux
           id: arch.conf
       source: /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
        linux: /vmlinuz-linux-ck-skylake
       initrd: /intel-ucode.img
               /initramfs-linux-ck-skylake.img
      options: root=/dev/nvme0n1p5 rw nvidia-drm.modeset=1 systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=false

        title: MemTest86
           id: memtest86-efi.conf
       source: /boot/loader/entries/memtest86-efi.conf

        title: Windows 10 (default)
           id: windows.conf
       source: /boot/loader/entries/windows.conf

        title: Windows Boot Manager
           id: auto-windows
       source: /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/LoaderEntries-4a67b082-0a4c-41cf-b6c7-440b29bb8c4f

        title: Reboot Into Firmware Interface
           id: auto-reboot-to-firmware-setup
       source: /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/LoaderEntries-4a67b082-0a4c-41cf-b6c7-440b29bb8c4f
## /boot/loader/loader.conf
timeout 3
console-mode max
default windows.conf
## /boot/loader/entries/windows.conf
title   Windows 10
efi /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Asked by Konrad Höffner (1028 rep)
Jan 30, 2022, 09:31 AM
Last activity: Jun 4, 2025, 11:08 PM