How to uninstall Windows Vista
Sun, 07/22/2007 - 15:09 — George
One the most viewed articles on our site is our guide on how to install Windows Vista. However, some of our visitors also searched for a way to uninstall Windows Vista from their systems. Even though we like Windows Vista and we think it is a worthy upgrade for Windows XP, we decided to please this category of people and create a short guide on how to uninstall Windows Vista.
This guide works for people that have a dual boot configuration - Windows XP and Windows Vista installed.
Important: Before making any changes to your system, you should backup all your important data.
Start Windows XP, install and launch VistaBootPro. Go to Manage OS Entries and then select the Microsoft Windows Vista entry. Click on the Delete button and confirm that you want to delete Windows Vista from the BCD Registry.
Now you can close VistaBootPro. Go to your desktop, right click on My Computer and select Manage.
The Computer Management tool will open. From the left side menu select Disk Management. You will see a list with all your partitions. Select the partition where you have installed Windows Vista, right click on it and choose Format....
In the Format window you can type the new name you want to set for this partition. Also you can change other settings such as the file system or the allocation unit size. We recommend you to use the default settings for both and press the OK button.
In case you don't want to wait for too long, you can always perform a quick format. Just check the Perform a quick format box and press OK.
You will receive a warning. Click on OK and the formatting will begin.
The formatting process can take from a few seconds up to several minutes. The duration depends a lot on the size of the partition and the type of formatting (normal or quick format). When finished, you will no longer have Windows Vista installed on your system.
Related articles:
How To Uninstall Windows Vista Using EasyBCD
How to install Windows Vista
Manage your drive letters in a dual-boot configuration
VistaBootPro
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Comments
Formatting Vista
Thanks for putting this on your webiste. There are a few of us that like the look of Vista, but sadly, it doesn't meet our needs; us gamers.
Uninstall Home Vista
We recently 'won' a new laptop which came installed with vista. We would like to uninstall vista and install Windows XP. How would I proceed?
Two options
You have two options:
1. Boot from a Windows XP CD, format the partition where Windows Vista is installed and then install Windows XP.
2. Go to this guide and see the article we recommend for installing Windows XP in a Dual Boot with Pre-installed Windows Vista.
After you install XP, follow this tutorial and the instructions listed above to uninstall Windows Vista.
u rock u got the best
u rock u got the best artical ever thnx u
r so nice not charging us for this if u were u would make $$$$
thnx
Hi, my computer came with
Hi, my computer came with win vista.. and i want to go back to XP..
but the problem si that win vista is installed ind the same parition that all the rest of the information... it has inly one partition.. what can i do?
Do...
Hello Sebastian...
First, create another partition using the available free space, move your data to the other partition and then install Windows XP.
can't partition!
hey, please help with this - my com was previously running on XP, but after it crashed i used a XP CD to recover it, but now it's demanding a product key which i don't have and i want to restore my previous XP version.
however, i can't seem to partition C and D drives - it says it contains system files and can't be extended/formatted.
any ideas how this can be solved?
Product key and format
The product key of XP can be found on a sticker on your computer or on the anvelope of the CD or the recover CD.
You can use this tool to find the XP product key you had on your cumputer before the crash: Product Key finder.
You can't format C or D because Windows installed system files on those partitions. You need to insert the WinXP CD and format the desired partition from the setup process.
Completely uninstall Windows Vista
I installed Vista on XP as dual boot on the another partition. When I uninstalled Vista and installed it again it collected some old information so it means that something is left over on C: where I have XP installation but cannot figure out what it is. I deleted Boot.BAK and Bootsect.BAK from C: but something else is left on C: drive. I also formated D: partition where I have Vista installed. Any clue?
don't worry
don't worry, if you have formatted the partition where Vista was installed and you have removed the Vista bootloader, there are no other significant (vista) files on your system.