Windows Vista Removing Vista Beta from a dual-boot config.

I dual-boot between Windows Vista and Windows XP MC Edition. I have XP on one partition, and Vista on another. I would like to remove the Vista Beta, seeing as how the trial is about to come to an end. How do I go about doing this? I see no options in Add/Remove Programs. Am I going to have to boot into Vista? I honestly have not loaded it since November.

 

Hello JPaterson000,

Do you have the XP OS disc?

Boot into XP using the XP disc:

To start the Recovery Console from the Windows CD, follow these steps:

Insert the Windows CD and shut the system down, then restart. Follow your computer’s prompts to start from the CD. (You may need to adjust settings in the computer’s BIOS to enable the option to start from a CD.)

Follow the setup prompts to load the basic Windows startup files. At the Welcome To Setup screen, press R to start the Recovery Console.

From the Recovery Console, type bootcfg /scan to list all available Windows installations on all available disks/partitions.

Use bootcfg /add to append a Windows installation to Boot.ini.

I don't know whether the RC will recognize Vista or not but its XP you only want.

After re establishing XP's boot record, then you can Format the Vista partition or delete all the files on that partition.

Regards - Charles

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922809/en-us

My solution:
1) Format the Vista partition from XP
2) Remove 4 files/folders from the root of the boot drive:
Boot (a folder)
bcedit (a file)
bootmgr (a file)
bootsect.bak (a file)

These files may be hidden, and they may be resistant to removal. I went through many contortions to get rid of them. In the Boot folder I actually had to drill down to the bottom of that directory and start taking ownership and giving myself permissions until I deleted the whole darned thing!

In the event that the XP boot loader doesn't function properly (hasn't happened to me yet), you can fix it by using the Recovery Console.

 

Don’t remove the Vista boot files from XP until you have replaced the XP partition’s PBR. That’s the fixboot command from the recovery console.
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/index.html#thechanges
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

 

I use the "BootSect.exe" utility found in the Boot folder of the Vista DVD and then just do it this way... and it works perfectly, with no problems..


Use option /nt52 to restore the ntldr loader
Use option /nt60 to restore the BootManager loader

Editing the menu options in the Boot Manager when starting your computer is no longer available through the file boot.ini you have to use the BcdEdit.exe tool to acomplish this task.

So you would type "bootsect /nt52 c:" (without quotes) and then reboot and it will boot right to XP... then you can just format your other drive to get rid of the Vista files....