This is an excerpt from the OpenBSD faq4:
Setting active partitions
This is probably the most overlooked, and yet, sometimes the best solution
for multibooting. Simply set the active partition in whatever OS you are
currently using to be the one you want to boot by default when you next
boot. Virtually every OS offers a program to do this; OpenBSD's is
[162]fdisk(8), similar named programs are in Windows 9x and DOS, and many
other operating systems. This can be highly desirable for OSs or systems
which take a long time to shut down and reboot -- you can set it and start
the reboot process, then walk away, grab a cup of coffee, and come back to
the system booted the way you want it -- no waiting for the Magic Moment
I am 100% in agreement with this. Let each operating system boot *with its own boot loader*. Simple and easy. We do not need boot managers. We can multiboot by simply changing the boot flag.
Alas, Windows does not have an equivalent to GNU Parted or BSD fdisk.
To my knowledge, there is no utility in Windows that will simply change the boot flag.
If one tries to change a boot flag with the Windows diskpart.exe utility (which can "set" a primary partition as "active"), it will write an entire Microsoft-style MBR. That's more than switching a boot flag, and it's not what we want for multibooting.
plppart32.exe is the best Win32 utility I have found for switching the boot flag. It's just too bad Microsoft will not include one of their own with their OS.
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