10

This is a Q&A that I recently have figured out, so I have posted the answer below.

After installing Windows 10, every time I get a kernel update or I run the update-grub2 it always shows Windows 7 or Windows Recovery Environment instead of Windows 10. How do I fix this permanently?

2
  • Those changes already exist in (my Mint 19.2) /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/20microsoft, but it still returns "Windows Vista". Note that, when the dual-boot system was Windows 7, it returned the correct value, so it appears it is the source of the information that is missing.
    – cdg
    Aug 18, 2019 at 4:46
  • @cdg This should be asked at Linux&Unix as this site is for official Ubuntu flavors only. Also, you should file a bug report with Mint Development if you already have all this as they may not be detecting it correctly.
    – Terrance
    Aug 18, 2019 at 13:29

1 Answer 1

11

Update 2022-10-23: It appears the grub team has not updated for Windows 11 yet as it might show Windows Vista, so I have added how to make the changes in the answer below.


The reason why it still shows Windows 7 or Windows Recovery Environment instead of Windows 10 is that the file /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/20microsoft does not contain the label for Windows 10, so during the os-prober detection of the OS it falls back to Windows 7 or Windows Recovery Environment.

To correct this, you need to make the following changes to the following file (I am going to put gedit as the editor, but use what you want):

sudo gedit /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/20microsoft

NOTE: You should always make a backup of a file before modifying it!

Added for Windows 11 now as well as it might be detected as Windows Vista.

if item_in_dir -q bootmgr "$2"; then
        # there might be different boot directories in different case as:
        # boot Boot BOOT
        for boot in $(item_in_dir boot "$2"); do
                bcd=$(item_in_dir bcd "$2/$boot")
                if [ -n "$bcd" ]; then
                        if grep -qs "W.i.n.d.o.w.s. .1.1" "$2/$boot/$bcd"; then
                                long="Windows 11"
                        elif grep -qs "W.i.n.d.o.w.s. .1.0" "$2/$boot/$bcd"; then
                                long="Windows 10"
                        elif grep -qs "W.i.n.d.o.w.s. .8" "$2/$boot/$bcd"; then
                                long="Windows 8 (loader)"
                        elif grep -qs "W.i.n.d.o.w.s. .7" "$2/$boot/$bcd"; then
                                long="Windows 7 (loader)"

the above section is around line 34 of the file. All you should have to do is change the if statement at the beginning of the line to elif and then add the section for Windows 11 starting with the if line above the one for Windows 10.

Once saved, then running os-prober now looks like this:

terrance@terrance-ubuntu:~$ sudo os-prober
/dev/sdc1:Windows 11:Windows:chain

then running update-grub2 it will now make the updates to your /boot/grub/grub.cfg permanent anytime you get a kernel update so it will show the correct version of Windows now (example below):

terrance@terrance-ubuntu:~$ sudo update-grub
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/init-select.cfg'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/lubuntu-grub-theme.cfg'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.0-52-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.15.0-52-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.0-50-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.15.0-50-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.13.0-52-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.13.0-52-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.elf
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.
Found Windows 11 on /dev/sdc1
done

Hope this helps!

3
  • 4
    Has this been posted upstream (as bug/fix), for Grub2 maintainers?
    – david6
    Aug 27, 2015 at 7:50
  • @david6 I have no idea if it has been. I just made the discovery last night while trying to learn more about GRUB2 and how it determines what OS it finds.
    – Terrance
    Aug 27, 2015 at 14:01
  • The '20microsoft' scripts looks messy, and may need other improvements.
    – david6
    Aug 28, 2015 at 6:04

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