Linux Mint Forums

This is probably a very basic question - however I am a complete newbie when it comes to Dual Booting operating systems. I have Windows XP installed on my system , I want to install Mint 6 as a secondary system but I want to have Windows booting first as a priority - asking me to boot Mint as a secondary.This is very important !!. Can someone guide me thr'o the instalation process - do I set any priorities at the guided partitioning stage ?? etc

You can do this post install. Open /boot/grub/menu.lst in a text editor with root privileges e.g. Scroll down to the line that says "End Default Options". Now count the number of lines starting with "title" before you get to the one with windows in it (which should be under the line that says "END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST". For instance, you probably have 4 lines beginning with title, with the last one being windows, thus the number you're after is 3. Then you need to find the line higher up in the file which says "default 0" and change the 0 to the number you just counted to. This will set the default boot to windows, and you have to actively change it in the menu to boot to mint.

Thanks for that - problem solved.