I recently upgraded my computer from Windows XP SP2 to Windows Vista. The first upgrade did not work, so I used a recovery point and reverted the system back to Windows XP and then tried again. The second time the upgrade worked, but now every time I start Windows Vista the Windows Boot Manager screen appears offering me a choice of booting “Microsoft Windows Vista” or “Vista Home Premium (Recovered)”. If I leave everything alone it defaults to the “Microsoft Windows Vista” and loads correctly after a 30 second timeout. How can I get rid of this boot menu from the startup sequence?

It is likely that the Windows Boot Manager is appearing because Windows has detected that you previously needed to complete a recovery of Windows, and is now offering the option for this to occur on every reboot. However, since your computer is running quite nicely at the moment, this is unnecessary so we need to prevent the Windows Boot Manager screen from appearing. As a starting point, we can try disabling the menu from within the System control panel. Boot into Windows Vista then go to the “Start” menu > “Control Panel”. From the left-hand pane click “Classic View” and then open the “System” control panel. In the System control panel, look in the left-hand pane and under “Tasks” click “Advanced system settings”. In the System Properties window that appears, click the “Advanced” tab and under the “Startup and Recovery” heading click “Settings”. This properties window allows you to change the startup settings for Windows Vista. Under the “System startup” heading you should see a few options, mainly the default operating system together with boxes allowing you to enable the time to display the list of operating systems and recovery options. Most likely, the option “Time to display recovery options when needed” is enabled. Untick this option and then click OK twice to save and close the open windows. Once this has been done, restart the computer to check whether the problem is resolved. Should the problem continue, go back into the Startup and Recovery properties and check whether the option “Time to display list of operating systems” is enabled. If so, disable this option then click OK and restart the computer.