How to Remove and Uninstall Vista

Windows OS supports dual booting a computer, where consumers could setup multiple OS’s and choose which system to turn on to startup. If you have used Windows Vista on top of current Windows XP to make the computer a dual-boot system, but now determined to dump or ditch the Windows Vista separation to relapse to the classic Windows XP go after the instruction below to remove and uninstall Windows Vista to maintain only Windows XP w/out having to install back the Operating System, and w/out affecting saved data and files.

Important: Don’t use this guide if your dual-boot system is Windows Vista.

1. Boot your PC and go to Windows desktop.

2. Put the Windows Vista DVD installation disc to DVD-ROM or CD-ROM optical drive.

Otherwise, mount the image of Windows Vista DVD ISO on any virtual drive.

3. Open Command Prompt, or click Start menu to go to Run command.

4. In the Run text box or the command prompt, issue the subsequent command and press Enter:

[DVD Drive Letter]:bootbootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force

For instance,

If the DVD path is D:, then key in the following:

D:bootbootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force

The step will eliminate the boot menu to choose OS to begin.

5. Eject the DVD disc and restart the PC.

6. The PC will open up with Windows XP setup partition.

7. Manually eliminate folders and files of Windows Vista, including Program Files, Windows, and Users folder. If you are installing to divide partition, simply format the separation to clean it immediately.

8. On the root folder of Windows XP, erase BootSect.BAK and Boot.BAK. The 2 files are scrap backup files of previously placed Windows Vista boot-loader, but no longer helpful for Windows XP system.

Tip: NT52 is the Master Boot Record or MBR used by Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP, while Windows Vista utilizes NT6. So if you are going to uninstall Windows 7 in Vista/7 dual-boot system, alter the NT52 in the prompt to NT60.

Fast Shortcut: It is possible to arrange the Windows Vista partition immediately as well, and then begin the computer with Windows XP installation CD to fix the partition, or open the “bootsect /nt52 c:” command from the boot folder of Operating System immediately to fix the boot partition.