Apple iMac with Retina 5K Display
Changing the default boot OS on an iMac without booting into OSX
I found this awesome tip recently that is especially useful for people that are dual booting OSX and Windows (bootcamp) on their iMac.
I basically run Windows 100% on my iMac. That's because I do Android development and that works better on Windows than on OSX. There's other reasons but that's another story.
In the past I have set the default OS at boot time on my iMac to boot Windows/bootcamp. Every time there is an OSX update, this gets reverted back to OSX. And to make the change back to booting windows by default, I have to go into OSX and change it. Since I boot Windows 100%, this is a real pain.
Luckily there is a way to set the default OS at boot time on your iMac. See the instructions below.
- Boot or reboot your iMac and hold down the alt or option key.
- When the options come up to select which OS to boot, select Windows, and then hover the mouse cursor over the up-arrow.
- Hold down the Ctrl key and the up arrow icon will change to a refresh-looking icon.
- Left click the refresh-looking icon.
- Windows will boot and will be set to your default OS at boot time.