After making a decision on Windows 7 vs. Windows 8 on one of my Macs, I find myself occasionally using Bootcamp to boot my Macs into Windows. That involves holding down the Option key while booting, and then selecting the Windows partition. If I’m already in Windows, it is easier to reboot into OS X – there is an option in the Windows system tray to reboot into OS X. After a bit of searching, I found a couple of options to similarly boot into Windows from OS X, without having to sit there and hold down the Option key.
I first used a free app called Bootchamp, which puts an item in your OS X menu bar that allows you to reboot directly into Windows, without holding down the Option key. The app was great and worked reliably, with one small annoyance – I had to reenter my user password every time I wanted to reboot from OS X into Windows. I then discovered another free app called QuickBoot, which did away with the need to enter a password (after you entered it once). Simply click on the app’s icon in your menu bar, and pick the OS into which you want to reboot.
The app gives you a few other preferences, including whether to do away with the need to enter a password to reboot, and whether the app should load at launch.
The app is not signed by the developer as part of Apple’s Gatekeeper program, so, if you trust it, you will need to right-click on the download to open and install it (assuming you haven’t picked Gatekeeper’s lowest security setting). The option to bypass a password at reboot requires the app to install something at the root level of your system, too, so this app might not be for paranoid users. I haven’t run into any problems yet, though.