How to remove a second installation of a Windows operating system from a partition
This is copied from Microsoft
Article ID | : | 888023 |
Last Review | : | November 9, 2004 |
Revision | : | 1.0 |
INTRODUCTION
MORE INFORMATION
Note Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps.
- Start the Windows operating system that you want to keep.
- To determine the Windows folder that you want to keep do the following
- Access Run or Search window
- Type %windir%
-
Click on OK
- Remember the filter that is opened. For example, the folder may be C:\Windows Note: This is your “working” Windows folder. Do not delete or remove this folder from the partition.
- Open Windows Explorer.
- Find the Windows folder that you want to remove. IMPORTANT Make sure that this is not the folder that you identified as your “working” Windows folder in step 2.
- Right click the Windows folder that you want to remove
- Click on Delete
- Click on Yes to confirm the deletion of the folder.
- Click Start
- Right click My Computer
- Click on Properties.
- Click on the Advanced tab
- Under Startup and Recovery, click on Settings
- Under System startup, click on edit to modify the Boot.ini (will open in Notepad) Should look like Diagram A below.
- Click on File
- Click on Save As
- Name it Boot.old (this way you will have a backup file in case of an error)
-
Click on OK
- Click File
- Click Exit
- In the Startup and Recovery dialog box, under System startup, click Edit to reopen the Boot.ini file.
- In the [boot loader] section of the Boot.ini file, identify and then delete the line of text for the Windows operating system that you want to remove. For example, if the Windows folder that you removed in step 4 was for the Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition operating system, remove the following line of text from the Boot.ini file: “multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.0-“Microsoft Windows XP Home” /fastdetect”
- Click File
- Click Save
- Click File
- Click Exit
-
Click on OK
- Restart the computer
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft
Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.0="Microsoft
Windows XP Home"
/fastdetect
Diagram A
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition
- Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition