Aimed at NOVICES.

*** Introduction

I installed linux mint 12. The startup screen defaults to booting up into linux. I found no easy way to default to windows. So I had to figure it out. Linux Mint should have this in the user setup control panels.  A lot of people will want to do this.

Grub is what starts on you computer if you dual boot windows and linux mint. It is the first thing you will see.

There is a program call "startupmanager" that you can install. It did not work for me. It assigned a default for grub that is one number to high. In my case a "6".

NOTE: Be carefull doing this. Have a goot cd for linux or windows or someway to fix mistakes. probally  the worst that can happen is you set the default to the wrong thing which can be changed by the arrow keys on your keyboard.

*** Step 1 Get the line number for Windows

Startup your computer that dual boots linux and windows.

The grub startup screen will appear after the bios stuff.

The count starts at "Zero 0".

I had 6 lines. Windows was on the last line.

So starting at "Zero 0" windows is line "Five 5".

*** Step 2 Open Grub Default File

Use the file manager by clicking on "Computer" on the desktop.

Computer -> File System -> etc -> default

Look for grub and right click on it and pick "Open as administrator". Use your password to get in.

*** Step 3 Edit Grub Default File

The important stuff is in the second group  of lines near the top.

GRUB_DEFAULT=0

GRUB_TIMEOUT=10

Change the grub_default to the number of the line that shows up on the grub startup menu.

GRUB_DEFAULT=5

GRUB_TIMEOUT=10

The grub_timeout ws the number of seconds that grub will wait until going on to the default. I thought 10 seconds was way to long. So I changed it to 3

GRUB_DEFAULT=5

GRUB_TIMEOUT=3

Now close and save the file.

*** Step 4 Update Grub from Grub default File

You may have noticed some text at the top of the file saying the changes will not happen unless you update-grub.

Open a terminal window. Go to the menu on the bottom right and look for "Terminal" on the left.

Put in the command "sudo update-grub" and confirm with your password.

There done.