How To – Fix No Windows in Grub Menu

How to fix missing option to boot to Windows from Grub boot menu.

Situation

  • Dual boot of Linux and Windows setup
  • Have just completed an update to Linux
  • Prior to update the Grub menu showed Windows as an option
  • Following update, only Linux is showing in the Grub boot menu

Reason

Grub (an upstream contributor to your Linux distro) no longer runs OS-PROBER by default as it can cause problems in specific use-cases involving running virtual machines. See the release notes for Debian 12 here

Solution

Boot in to Linux and check the contents of the /etc/boot/grub file using the following command:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Look for a line that controls disabling of OS probing: “GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false” and make sure that it isn’t commented out. If it is then change:

#GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

to:

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

then save and exit the editor.

You now need to tell Grub to update itself with the command:

sudo update-grub

Take a close look at the text output. It should tell you that Windows has been detected.

You can now reboot and all should be as it was before.

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