Disabling the Timer for Windows NT Boot Loader (131603)

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.1

Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5

Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51

Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.1

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.5

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0

Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1

This article was previously published under Q131603

SUMMARY

You can configure the Windows NT Boot Loader to pause indefinitely by editing the BOOT.INI and changing timeout value to -1. The following example shows the BOOT.INI after this change is made:

   [boot loader]
   timeout=-1
   default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT35

This change cannot be made through Control Panel, because the valid values are 0-999. Any attempt to modify this value with a negative number produces the following error in versions 3.5 and 3.51:

Invalid Timeout Entry

In Windows NT version 4.0, you will receive the following error:

Insufficient memory for this operation;
Close one or more windows applications to increase available memory

Modification Type:

Major

Last Reviewed:

5/7/2003

Keywords:

KB131603