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[Tom <question78588@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Question #78588 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/78588

Tom posted a new comment:
Ok, so when you've done

cd /boot/grub
ls
sudo cp menu.lst menu.lst.300709
ls

then do

gksudo gedit menu.lst

Note that "gksudo" and "sudo" do the same job but "gksudo" is better to
use when the command is going to open a gui console, in this case the
text-editor "gedit". This needs to be opened as SuperUser because it's a
system file so you wouldn't be able to save your changes without
"sudoing it" as we say. Now scroll right down to the very end of all
this and find the section that looks a bit like this

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Microsoft Windows Vista
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

cut your version (the numbers and some other details might be a little
different on your machine) and then scroll back to the end of # section
and paste your version in to look a bit like this

...
## should update-grub add savedefault to the default options
## can be true or false
# savedefault=false

## ## End Default Options ##

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Microsoft Windows Vista
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
root (hd1,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=66daaabd-ec15-4184-6oo9-df800b17fde2 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet
...

Ok the "..." is just for you to show you that there's some stuff
preceding and some stuff following this section. Also where i have "root
(hd1,2)" that was to get around a problem i was having, yours should be
using the uuid numbers so that if you change around your physical hard-
drives inside your machine then grub will still look for the same
partition where-ever you moved it to ;)

Ok, so that puts the Vista option at the top of your boot menu but now
grub will default into booting into that so scroll right up to the top
of menu.lst and find the section

## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not use 'savedefault' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
# default 0

and delete the # at the start of the last line there and change the
number to 1 so that line becomes

default 1

Going back to the question you asked tho - try scrolling through
menu.lst until you reach this section

## controls how many kernels should be put into the menu.lst
## only counts the first occurence of a kernel, not the
## alternative kernel options
## e.g. howmany=all
## howmany=7
# howmany=all

and make that last line

howmany=2

Finally click on the "Save" button an then perhaps try a reboot to see if it had the right effect :)
Good luck with all this!
Regards from
Tom :)

Note that system files often have a lot of lines starting with # as this
stops the machine taking any notice of what's on the line. So it's a
handy way for us to leave notes to each other without confusing the
machine. We say these lines are "commented out", some system files use a
different character but i think there's only 2 characters that act in
this way

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