How to change the name of your Operating System when Dual Booting

If you have setup your PC to dual boot with two Windows Operating Systems of the same name, you may find it hard to tell which OS is which. Therefore, you need to change the name of one of them, so you know the difference.

  • To change the name of the OS, open up command prompt running it as an administrator.
  • Browse to C:\Windows\System32 (if you are not already there (use the CD command if you need to change directory).
  • Type bcdedit. This will show a list of your Boot Loader.
  • To change the name, type: bcdedit /set {current} Description “Windows 7 Ultimate”
    • The will change the name of the operating system you are currently on to display as Windows 7 Ultimate. Replace the description text to something else more appropriate.
  • If you want to change the operating system name that you are not using, replace the word {current} with the identifier value for the other OS you see when you just typed in bcdedit. The identifier is a string of hexadecimal values.
  • If the commands are successful, you’ll see a message saying “The operation completed successfully”
Now when you boot your PC, you should be able to see the new name.

Leave a Reply