Uninstall windows vista

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How do I uninstall windows vista and go back to my origianl windows media xp
version? While I like this new program it has screwed up my drivers
 
Did you do an upgrade installation or a clean installation over top of MCE?
There is a way back if you didn't do an upgrade installation, but it is still a
hit or miss operation from what I've seen. I'm helping folks refine the guide so
it is a more likely to succeed process.
 
You cannot start XP setup from the Vista desktop so you have to boot the
computer with your XP cd or a restore cd provided by your computer's
manufacturer. If you have a system with a hidden recovery partition, Vista
may have disabled the function key functionality for starting the recovery
and you may have to contact your manufacturer for instructions or software
for restoring the function key operation first.

Once you have reinstalled XP install your backup program and restore the
files and settings you backed up before installing Vista.
 
tip1002000 said:
How do I uninstall windows vista and go back to my origianl windows media xp
version? While I like this new program it has screwed up my drivers
Click to expand...

You didn't say how you installed Vista. Some possibilities are:

1) You did a clean install to the partition that Windows XP was on.

2) You did a clean install to another partition

3) You did an upgrade to Windows XP

4) You did an install to the same partition as Windows XP, but you did not
do an upgrade.

If you did 1) you reformatted the partition, and Windows XP is totally gone
and the only way to return to XP is to reformat again and reinstall XP

If you did 2) a clean install to another partition, then by doing a repair
to the boot.ini file and some other stuff, you can actually get back to your
Windows XP system.

If you did 3) I have heard that theoretically you can go back, but nobady
seems to know exactly how, and even the poster who suggested it said that
you chances of success are low, and that even if you can do it successfully,
it's so much work that it isn't worth it. Better to back up your data,
reformat the drive, re-install Windows XP, and then copy your data back to
My Documents and the Outlook Express Message Store.

If you did 4) this is a no-no. Microsoft doesn't recommend this and warns
that it is unsupported. If nothing has been destroyed yet, it may be
possible to back out, but I don't know how.

So, what did you do?
 
Confession time. I havn't actually done this, and I can't give you the full
step by step procedure for doing it. But the first step is to either find
or recreate your boot.ini file. Some posters have reported that they can
find it, and some have reported that they can't.

Fred Langa had an article on putting boot files on a floppy, booting to the
floppy, and booting to XP from that. I did a short seartch but didnt find
it.

I think that the files that you need to copy from the root of your XP
partition to the floppy are BOOT.ini, NTDETECT.COM, and ntldr

I hope that at this point someone who has repaired the boot function of an
XP partition after deleting Vista will jump in.

Todd
 
Just download and run VistaBootPro (google it). It will clean everything up
and get you back to booting XP.
 
Excellent, that did the trick. Thank you.

Tom Scales said:
Just download and run VistaBootPro (google it). It will clean everything up
and get you back to booting XP.
Click to expand...
 
tip1002000 said:
How do I uninstall windows vista and go back to my origianl windows media xp
version? While I like this new program it has screwed up my drivers
Click to expand...
 
i am in the same boat i installed vista on my hd and now can't remove it or
reinstall xp. i can't semm to figure out a way to format the drive so i can
reinstall xp. any ideaa i don't have windows.old nor do i have a partition
back up. the dell reinstallation dvd will not run?
 
You need a fix from Dell to re-enable the function key during startup.
Vista overwrote the code.
 
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