HOW to REMOVE XP after VISTA INSTALLATION?

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Guest

Once Vista is installed as the fresh copy, the old XP is normally zipped or
something into a special folder. That folder takes some space I would like to
use. How can I uninstall that old version of XP? I cant just delete that
folder since on the start up Vista knows that that XP folder sits in there,
therfore, it (Vista) will look for it once the Folder (XP) will be deleted
manually. Is there any start up file I can edit which has the info regarding
that old XP folder? To sum up, need to find a file to edit , responsible for
the start up so I could manually delete the OLD XP folder and leave the VISTA
start up process intact.
 
That is a very good question. I would also like to know it there is a way to
do that also.
 
Is there a boot.ini file in the root directory on your Vista drive? I don't
have a Vista machine nearby to check, but that file contains the menu items
you get when you boot up. That's the file that XP and the other recent
Windows OS's use. If that file exists, you can edit out the line that points
to XP, then delete all the XP folders. Of course, save a copy of the ini
file first. If you are not familiar with the layout of that file, you might
want to search Microsoft.com to learn about it.
 
Oops, sorry, I had a brain fart. Just as I hit the "Post" button, I
remembered about bcdedit. Go to a command prompt in Vista, then run
bcdedit.exe. That's how you edit Vista's equivalent of the boot.ini file.
 
You of course realize that Vista is BETA.........and by deleting XP how are
you aiming to get to your programs/files when Vista screws
up???????????????? and it will!! after all it is a MS product.

I originally had a lovely dual boot which worked nicely...when Vista balked
I could enter XP and and still have access to my programs/files.I did the
old dual boot trick of installing all of my XP programs under Vista into
their original folders...most worked some did not.But at least I could
access them from within XP.
think about it
peter
 
Hello,

If you installed Windows Vista to the same partition that Windows XP was on
(ie, XP was on drive C, and you installed Vista to drive C), Windows XP is
no longer there, even though it may be listed in the boot options.

Your old Windows XP folders (Windows, Documents and Settings, Program Files,
etc) are in a hidden folder called Windows.old.

To see it, you may have to go to an Explorer window, click Organize, Folder
Options, View Tab, then enable Show Hidden Files.

If you no longer need any of the files in this folder, you can safely delete
it.

- JB
 
Will the action below, then avoid the startup boot screen where it asks you
to choose the OS for startup?

Thks
Nitin
 
You can delete Windows.old - if you can - it is considered a protected
folder and you may have difficult in deleting the folder.
There is not much dialogue about this folder except on how to delete -
however this folder is used to "recreate" XP if you so desire.

There is a KB article, Microsoft Support, which describes the procedure -
unfortunately, although I copied the article to my HD, I did record the KB
number.
BTW - this folder is created also when Vista is installed to another
partition or drive.
 
The fastest and best way to do so is to run disk clean select the option for
all users and away it is.
But be carefull make sure you have everything out of it you want to save at
forehand!.

Ko
 
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