Using your modified bootloader
Windows normally protects the "ntldr" file, so, once you have finished editing the file, you will not be able to overwrite the original. Therefore, you should save it as something such as "ntldr_custom". We will replace the original file with this modded version later. However, first, there are some basic checks that must be done. Firstly, we need to set the file's attributes; right-click on the file in Explorer and choose Properties. Here, make sure that the file size (not on disk) is correct; it should be exactly the same as the original (250,048 bytes). Next, make sure that "Read-only" and "Hidden" are ticked. After this, click "Advanced" and ensure that "Compress contents of this file to save disk space" is not ticked. As Windows deals with compressed files, and the bootloader runs before Windows has booted, the file will not be readable if it is compressed. Additionally, I ticked "File is ready for archiving", simply because that's how my original ntldr file was, but I don't know if this is required.


The attributes of the modified ntldr_custom file on my laptop.

Now we want to replace the original ntldr with ntldr_custom. Windows normally protects the bootloader file, so, to overwrite it, you must boot into safe mode. Once in safe mode, you can rename ntldr to something like ntldr_original (as a backup), and rename ntldr_custom to ntldr. It is worth double- checking the file attributes as described above once you have renamed the files, before restarting Windows.

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- Robbi-985 aka SomethingUnreal