this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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Basically around the 2000s we had a WinXP computer and each time I wanted to use it, either my mom or my dad had to turn it on. However they had to strike the key to enter the BIOS. Everytime when booting the PC. Then they would exit the BIOS and so Windows XP would boot normally.

Do you guys know if your parents also did that and why?

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[โ€“] Schlecknits@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

I vaguelly remember around this time some low end computers were shipped with FreeDOS instead of Windows, in order to save on licencing fees. AFAIK this was the case because legislation in some european countries restricted the sale of new computers to ones which had an OS preinstalled.

Maybe XP was installed after the purchases however a partition with FreeDOS/whatever remained as the default boot option. Hence your parents had to select the other boot option (Windows XP) manually. Granted you could change your primary boot partition permanently, but maybe your parents didn't know this.