sprout/docs/windows-setup.md

Setup Sprout to boot Windows

Prerequisites

• Secure Boot disabled
• UEFI Windows installation

Step 1: Base Installation

First, mount the EFI System Partition on your Windows installation:

In an administrator command prompt, run:

> mountvol X: /s

This will mount the EFI System Partition to the drive letter X:.

Please note that Windows Explorer will not let you see the drive letter X: where the ESP is mounted. You will need to use the command prompt or PowerShell to access the ESP. Standard editors can, however, be used to edit files on the ESP.

Download the latest sprout.efi release from the GitHub releases page. For x86_64 systems, download the sprout-x86_64.efi file, and for ARM systems, download the sprout-aarch64.efi file. Copy the downloaded sprout.efi file to X:\EFI\BOOT\sprout.efi on your EFI System Partition.

Step 3: Configure Sprout

Write the following file to X:\sprout.toml:

# sprout configuration: version 1
version = 1

# add a boot entry for booting Windows
# which will run the boot-windows action.
[entries.windows]
title = "Windows"
actions = ["boot-windows"]

# use the chainload action to boot the Windows bootloader.
[actions.boot-windows]
chainload.path = "\\EFI\\Microsoft\\Boot\\bootmgfw.efi"

Step 4: Configure EFI Firmware to boot Sprout

It is not trivial to add an EFI boot entry inside Windows. However, most firmware lets you load arbitrary EFI files from the firmware settings.

You can boot \EFI\BOOT\sprout.efi from firmware to boot Sprout.