href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-4/20/2014, referencing rEFInd 0.7.9</p>
+12/8/2014, referencing rEFInd 0.8.4</p>
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<li>User-configurable methods of detecting boot loaders:
<ul>
- <li>Auto-detection of EFI boot loaders, independently on internal hard disks, external hard disks, and optical discs.</li>
+ <li>Auto-detection of EFI boot loaders, independently on internal hard disks, external hard disks, optical discs, and network boot loaders.</li>
<li>Auto-detection of legacy BIOS boot loaders, independently on internal hard disks, external hard disks, and optical discs.</li>
<li>Manually via the configuration file</li>
</ul>
You can select which of these methods to use to construct the rEFInd main boot menu. Although rEFIt supports auto-detection, it does not support manual configuration; and rEFIt's options to enable, disable, and prioritize individual boot loader detection methods are primitive compared to those in rEFInd.</li>
+<li>Beginning with rEFInd 0.8.4, <i>experimental</i> network boot loader support via the <a href="http://ipxe.org">iPXE</a> EFI binaries. When activated, rEFInd should add a network-boot option to its menu when a suitable network boot server is available.</li>
+
<li>Support for launching legacy BIOS boot loaders on UEFI PCs with
-suitable CSM support (as of version 0.4.6). This feature requires building
-rEFInd with the TianoCore EDK2 toolkit, which I do for my main binary
-build. Note that some UEFI PCs, such as those with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI,
-lack a usable CSM.</li>
+suitable CSM support (as of version 0.4.6, with significant improvements in
+version 0.8.0). Note that some UEFI PCs,
+such as those with Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI, lack a usable CSM.</li>
+
+<li>Improved flexibility in setting the default OS to boot. rEFInd enables specifying the default by any substring in the description. You can also specify multiple defaults, so that if the first isn't available, another will take its place (which is useful when using removable disks). You can also add time specifications to set a default to be used only during certain hours of the day. If no default loader is set, rEFInd defaults to the last-booted loader.</li>
-<li>Improved flexibility in setting the default OS to boot. rEFInd enables specifying the default by any substring in the description. You can also specify multiple defaults, so that if the first isn't available, another will take its place (which is useful when using removable disks). You can also add time specifications to set a default to be used only during certain hours of the day.</li>
+<li>Support for partition names or GUID values as fallbacks for filesystem labels in certain configuration file settings. Partition names may be shown as values to be displayed as part of the descriptive text for boot tags on the main menu, too, if a filesystem has no label.</li>
<li>The ability to fine-tune options passed to EFI boot loaders, via manual configuration.</li>
<li>The <tt>gptsync</tt> utility, included with rEFInd 0.6.9 and later, has safety checks to prevent creating a fresh hybrid MBR if the MBR side has been adjusted without adjusting the GPT side—a common source of problems. This update also prioritizes partition inclusion in the hybrid MBR, which can help on disks that have many partitions. OTOH, as of rEFInd 0.6.9, this version of <tt>gptsync</tt> is relatively untested.</li>
+<li>The ability to set the VMX bit on certain Intel CPUs. This feature is necessary for certain virtualization tools, such as Hyper-V, and not all EFIs enable users to set it.</li>
+
</ul>
<p>On the flip side, at least for Mac users, rEFInd comes with less sophisticated Mac installation tools than does rEFIt, in favor of more OS-agnostic packaging.</p>