How to Uninstall and Remove Windows 7 or Vista Leaving Windows XP on Dual Boot System
Windows operating system supports dual-booting a PC, where users can install multiple OSes and select which system to boot up to on machine startup. If you have installed Windows 7 or Windows Vista on top of current existing Windows XP to make the PC a dual boot system, but now decided to ditch or dump the Windows 7 or Windows Vista partition to revert to the old good classic Windows XP follow the guide below to uninstall and remove Windows 7 or Windows Vista to leave only Windows XP without having to reinstall the OS, and without affecting saved files and data.
Important: Do not use this tutorial if your dualboot system is Windows 7 and Windows Vista.
- Boot up and log on to Windows XP desktop.
- Insert the Windows Vista or Windows 7 DVD installation disc into CD-ROM or DVD-ROM optical drive.
Alternatively, mount the Windows 7 or Windows Vista DVD ISO image on any virtual drive.
- Run Command Prompt, or click directly to Start menu -> Run command.
- In the command prompt or the Run text box, issue the following command and hit Enter:
[DVD Drive Letter]:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force
For example,
If the DVD drive path is D:, then enter the following:
D:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force
The step will remove the boot menu to select operating system to start.
- Remove the DVD disc and restart the computer.
- The computer will boot up with Windows XP installation partition.
- Manually remove files and folders of Windows Vista or Windows 7, including Windows, Program Files and Users folder. If you’re installing to separate partition, just format the partition to clean it instantly (with FDisk, Disk Manager of Computer Management or third party partition management software such as Partition Magic or EASEUS Partition Manager).
- On the root system folder of Windows XP, delete Boot.BAK and BootSect.BAK. The two files are remnant backup leftover files of previously installed Windows Vista or Windows 7 bootloader, but no longer useful for Windows XP only system.
Tip: NT52 is the MBR (Master Boot Record) used by Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, while Windows Vista uses NT6. So if you’re uninstall Windows 7 in Vista/7 dual boot system, change the NT52 in the command to NT60.
Fast Shortcut: It’s also possible to format the Windows Vista or Windows 7 partition straight away, and then start the computer with Windows XP Setup CD to repair the system partition, or run the “bootsect /nt52 c:” command above from the \boot\ folder of leftover OS immediately to repair the boot partition.
Tip: When startup repair the boot record after removing an installed operating system from dual-boot or multi-boot system, always use the highest version of Windows installation DVD/CD to perform the repair. For example, in a tri-boot PC with Windows XP, Vista and 7, after uninstalling Windows 7, use Windows Vista to repair the system. If the PC is restored and reverted back to Windows XP, then use the Windows XP setup CD.
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Entries (RSS)
June 15th, 2009 17:42
Ppl sorry for baffle… but is figure it out…
just needed read from that folder i puted downloaded win7.. 
Fnx 4 info.
June 15th, 2009 17:25
Hey… what if i dont used DVD to instal win7..? I just downloaded it… How delete than..?
June 10th, 2009 01:02
I formatted the drive but the boot manager still runs is there any other way to remove windows 7 from the boot manager or to close the boot manager?
June 5th, 2009 05:36
Please help! I can’t delete the Win 7 folders! I can’t format the volume too! Need advice!
May 26th, 2009 06:44
Thanks removing the dual boot manager worked perfect. I was going to give Win 7 a test run but it seems that it didn’t like most of my drivers, of course there are no compatable ones available and a good number of my programs wouldn’t work either. Microsoft Please leave XP Pro alive for those of us that actually use our computers and don’t need all the bells and wistles.
May 20th, 2009 10:08
this is not working! drive letter:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force is not a valid win32 application
May 18th, 2009 17:18
[...] work in this case, it seems Win7 has it’s own start-up process. After much searching I found this on ‘My Digital Life‘. Following the instructions I was able to get back to the WinXP [...]
May 13th, 2009 08:16
Ah, never mind – I finally got rid of em. I actually even tried deleting them in Linux but even that didn’t worked. Finally I somehow found a disc somewhere with ERD Commander and with that I finally managed to delete the folders. I think you should add this to your list of options – maybe someone has a similar problem.
May 13th, 2009 07:43
Wow… I have no idea what’s going on but I just can not delete the W7 files and folders in Windows Explorer – I have tried numerous ways – with BootDeleter, Killbox etc etc but nothing works. Tried deleting them on the command line – nada. It just fracking won’t delete. And I really don’t want to format – I have 250GB of stuff I don’t want to lose. This is so frustrating – I really am wondering why am I even using Windows – it’s a complete disaster. Made to get people in to mental institutions after losing their minds trying to use it. Blah, sorry for all the whining.
May 13th, 2009 02:42
This worked! Thank you.Simple and fast solution.
May 5th, 2009 22:11
Thank you. Simple and fast solution. Exactly what I was looking for! Works like a charm
May 4th, 2009 02:59
There is a case where this won’t work… I started with 32-bit XP, and then installed 64-bit W7. I can’t run the bootsect under XP, I assume because it’s 64-bit?
I get the following error:
bootsect.exe is not a valid Win32 application.
April 18th, 2009 18:35
How do I undo the boot menu thing? I want Windows 7 to show in the boot menu again.
Thanks
April 17th, 2009 00:41
This worked! Thank you!!!!!
April 4th, 2009 02:41
[...] via my digital life [...]
March 2nd, 2009 10:52
deleted windows 7 first,
then option kept coming up
then wanted to get rid of the option, so i searched and found this followed instructions and work perfectly
thanks so much
February 15th, 2009 02:16
The Boot.BAK and BootSect.Bak on the root directory of my C: drive seem to be the original Windows XP boot files. Wouldn’t I want to restore these and change Boot.bak into Boot.ini?????????
February 6th, 2009 05:33
ok because I was dual booting 64bit Win7 with 32bit WinXP that exe file obviously wouldn’t run from within XP.
So here’s what I did: during boot, I tapped F8 and chose Repair My Computer. Once I had logged in with my username/password, I opened the command prompt from the repair options, put in the Win7 install DVD and ran the above command from the DVD, and it worked.
February 6th, 2009 05:19
pretty sure this only works for 32bit.
February 5th, 2009 03:41
I tried this on my machine a while ago, and since then it has stopped working. I was dual booting into XP and 7, but since I did this it won’t boot at all. It turns on, displays the manufacturer, then the next screen (where it checks everything and lists PCI) it comes up, then stops and a few random coloured squares appear around the screen, and then nothing further happens. Anyone know a solution, I do have a picture if its at all helpful..
I’m really at a loss as I can’t get into the bios, can’t boot from CD and generally can’t do anything..
January 24th, 2009 02:06
Hi There,
Several days ago I installed Windows 7 on my machine. When I installed it, I choose Upgrade instead of CUSTOM (Big mistake). Now I would like to remove Windows 7 and get back to Vista Pro.
Before Vista Pro I had Windows XP Pro. The problem I have with Vista is an upgrade version. I don’t have the full version.
Anybody could help me on this? I’m looking for an uninstall procedure
Thank you,
Michgauth
January 23rd, 2009 02:57
Hi there,
I have windows seven installed an i am using it now. I want to get rid of it and use Vista.
PLEASE help me!!!!
January 20th, 2009 09:09
For anyone that cannot get the above method to work, there is an alternative method on how to remove Windows 7 (or any other OS when dual booting) posted at
hxxp://politicallymotivated.net/i-suck-at-spellings/2839
January 20th, 2009 03:29
Hi There,
Thanks for the info – you seem knowledgeable in this area so may I ask a question please?
I have an Advent 4211 (A MSi Wind clone)
This came with Windows XP on it – XP is all up to date. With XP only installed, I used to get a start-up boot menu that allowed me to boot into XP or start a recovery from a partition on the HD.
I have installed Windows 7 beta (7000) and now my boot up choices are Windows 7 or “A previous version of Windows’ (XP), but no option to boot from the recovery partition. XP and/or Windows 7 boots and run fine and I want to keep them both on the machine.
My question; is there a way that I can get back (or create new) an option in my boot menu to get the recovery partition back, so I can boot to it if I ever need to please? (whilst keeping the other two boot options there of course).
I still have the recovery partition on my HD. I can see it via the admin, disk management tools, all that is missing is seeing it as an option in the boot options at start-up.
The thread about the above is here and goes into more detail.
http://forums.msiwind.net/post77235.html#p77235
Many thanks for any expert help!
Alex Ford.
January 19th, 2009 03:08
thanks for this article, it came in handy