Windows 7 How to delete Windows Vista

B

billy09

New Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2009
hey guys,
i installed a valid copy of windows 7 on my PC.. but in a different partition. before i isntalled, i shrunk the volume of Vista C:\ and it only allowed me to have 54 GB unallocated space- there was at least 190GB of space that was unused in the hard drive, buit when i pressed hrink, it didnt let me have more than 54 GB. so, i installed w7 on a partition with 54GB, NTFS. So atm, im dual booting. (i done this just to make sure if W7 messes up, i can always use vista.) however, w7 works fine, and in about a month or two i want to put all important stuff from the vista OS (eg. documents )to w7, and then delete it. thats it just delete all of vista. therefore, this means all hard drive space can 'magically' come to windows 7, and therefore i can work and play games etc. on windows 7, for it is much better. However, i have NO idea how to do this. PlEASE HELP.

PLEASE REPLY.

thanyou so much :)
Billy.
 
I take it you have Vista installed on one partition, and 7 installed on another, so you have the 2 systems on 2 different partitions.

~~~~~~~

The easiest way to uninstall Vista is to delete Vista bcd entry with the help of Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies. Then you can format the Vista partition. I recommend this way.


~~~~~~~

A harder way to uninstall Vista is with the help of XP Boot-CD:

1. Backup, backup, backup
2. Reboot and Boot to your XP CD-ROM
3. Start the Recovery Console
4. Run Fixboot
5. Run fixmbr to reset the master boot record
6. Exit the Recovery Console
7. Reboot
8. To remove the extra entry, edit the boot.ini file to remove the ā€œMicrosoft Windows Longhornā€ entry.
9. Format Your Vista Partition
 
Since you are not in a hurry, could you attach a snipping tool picture of your Disk Management window?

To start Disk Management, type diskmgmt.msc in the Start Menu Search box. Please try to label the partitions to make it easier for us to understand.
 
screenshot

"
The easiest way to uninstall Vista is to delete Vista bcd entry with the help of Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies. Then you can format the Vista partition. I recommend this way."

are u sure that is 100 percent safe and stuff, and it will work? all memory from it will be unallocated, and then i willl be able to allocate it to my windows 7 hard drive?

heres a screenshot:

Untitled.jpg
 
You have Win 7 in a logical partition. If you leave it that way, you will need another primary partition to hold the boot files for it.

Or you can use another utility to change the logical partition to primary. One that seems to work well is Partition Wizard. You will also have to download the live CD and burn it, but that is easy in Win 7.

You can also use this utility to resize or move the Win 7 partition.

You will need the boot files in the Win 7 partition (unless you use another partition for the boot), which are bootmgr and a boot folder. You can check for them by looking for hidden system files in the root directory of the Vista and Win 7 partition. They should not be in the Win 7 partition. Do not just copy the files from the Vista to Win 7 directory...

To add the boot files, open an administrative command window, and using the Win 7 drive letter:

bcdboot C:\Windows /s C: (spaces are hard to see)

and hit enter, and after confirmation message, type exit or close the window.

Now I would suggest you do other actions from within Partition Wizard after booting to the CD.

Change the Win 7 partition to a primary partition and select apply.

Then make the Win 7 partition active and select apply if needed. If you want, you can stop here and try to reboot. It should go straight to the Win 7 install with no boot menu.

After it is booting, you can delete the Vista partition and move the Win 7 one as you wish using partition wizard.

A word of warning, always backup before you attempt something like this. I have one computer that does not tolerate hard drive problems, and has not allowed me past the setup screen after certain operations. This is an older computer, and to fix I had to take the drive out and fix it in another computer.

There is also a possibility you will get a "no OS found" type message. To fix this, boot to the Win 7 or Repair CD and go to repair on the second window, command prompt, and type:
bootrec /fixmbr hit enter
bootrec /fixboot hit enter

Close window and reboot.

You could also just do a startup repair which might 2 or 3 times.

Changing the Vista partition back to active should boot back into Vista if it were to become necessary and you had not deleted the Vista partition.

Hopefully it will work the first time......
 
mate, thanks for your reply, but i find it really confusing. thanks alot, really. but i am very confused. i heard something about the boot files are on vista or something ,and 7 wont be able to boot? am i wrong? bootmgr? im so confused :/ can i use this method safely:

"The easiest way to uninstall Vista is to delete Vista bcd entry with the help of Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies. Then you can format the Vista partition. I recommend this way."

will it work??

thnkyou :)
 
You can go to Start >Run ,a and type msconfig, click the Boot tab, select Vista and select Vista and choose Delete.

This does not delete the partition nor does it when you attempt to do it in EastBCD. It only hides it from the Boot Menu

I'd suggest downloading GParted to delete the Vista partition and no the boot files are not on the Vista partition.

Download GParted here:
GParted -- Download

Back in Windows you can go to Start >Run and type diskmgmt.msc and create partitions in the unallocated space.
 
billy09 said:
mate, thanks for your reply, but i find it really confusing. thanks alot, really. but i am very confused. i heard something about the boot files are on vista or something ,and 7 wont be able to boot? am i wrong? bootmgr? im so confused :/ can i use this method safely:

\\"The easiest way to uninstall Vista is to delete Vista bcd entry with the help of Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies. Then you can format the Vista partition. I recommend this way.\\"

will it work??

thnkyou :)
Click to expand...

The boot files, Bootmgr and a Boot folder are on the Vista Partition. The bcdboot command I gave you will put new ones on the win 7 partition. If you do that and make that partition active, your system will boot to Win 7. If you want to go back to Vista, make that partition active and reboot. To see the boot files, make sure you have folder options to see hidden, system files.

You should not really need EasyBCD, but if you download it, join their forum and download the 2.0 beta built 79. It works better with Win 7.

Real dual boot problems come when using XP or Linux. Since Vista and Win 7 use the same boot system, it is really no problem.

But as I mentioned, it is always good to have a bootable third party partition managing software available, just in case.
 
Last edited:
to clarify, i want to COMPLETELY get rid of vista, so the memory can be wiped off of it, and become unallocated. i then want to expand my w7 partition, to allow w7 to have the maximum amount of space. so if i remove the msconfig boot tab vista part, and then format it, will windows 7 actually boot, and if it does boot, can i use the unallocated space to extend my partition for w7?
 
You probably will not be able to do it in Windows, because the partition is Active.

That;s why I suggest GParted.

BTW, why would you want to extend your Windows 7 partition.If it's less than 60GB, there's no reason to. You're just slowing down Windows by making it have to go through more space when it starts up

If you have less than 60GB, forgive me.
 
hmm, it is less than 60 GB :/

guys, i did a test.
i used partition wizard, on w7 and made w7 active, instead of vista. i restarted and an error came up- bootmgr is missing. press ctrl+Alt+Del to restart. so i got a partition wizard Bootable CD to run the app on boot, without windows running. i made vista active again, and everything worked.

SUMMARY: This shows that the boot files are on Vista partitian. i read somewhere EasyBCD can move boot files ot windows 7 partition. is it true?

thanks soo much for ur help guys, much appriciated. :)
 
reghakr said:
Are you saying the boot file for Windows 7 are on the Vista partition?
Click to expand...
Yes...

Look for bootmgr and a Boot folder, that are hidden system files. If the Vista partition was active when Win 7 was installed, the boot files were used from the Vista Partition and were not put in the Win 7 partition.

The good thing about Win 7 and Vista is the files are almost identical, or at least some folks feel there are minor differences.

But you cannot make a logical partition active, so it has to be changed to primary unless another active partition is used to hold the boot files.
 
Last edited:
saltgrass-- do u think its possible for me to move the boot files or whatever into windows 7, so i dont need vista no more and it will be safe for me to delete?

thanks :)
 
Saltgrass said:
Yes...

Look for bootmgr and a Boot folder, that are hidden system files. If the Vista partition was active when Win 7 was installed, the boot files were used from the Vista Partition and were not put in the Win 7 partition.

The good thing about Win 7 and Vista is the files are almost identical, or at least some folks feel there are minor differences.

But you cannot make a logical partition active, so it has to be changed to primary unless another active partition is used to hold the boot files.
Click to expand...

But if Windows 7 was installed last the boot file would be on the Windows 7 partition, correct?

Or am I really loosing it?
add.png


How about billy09 posting a screen shot of Disk Management.

Expand the Window so everything is visible.
 
Last edited:
billy09, to put the boot sytem on the Win 7 partitiion, follow the earlier directions. Boot into Win 7. Make note of the drive letter for that partition and use in place of C:.

Open an Administrative command window and type the following and hit enter after:

bcdboot C:\windows /s C:

Then try you test again.

reghakr, the boot files are always put in the first active partition on the primary hard drive. They may be on a different drive than the actual OS install. The System annotation is a good clue, but does not always indicate the primary drive if it has been changed after the install.

To find XP boot files, look for ntldr, ntdetect, and boot.ini. For Win 7 and Vista look for bootmgr and a Boot folder.
 
Last edited:
saltgrass- it worked!!!
thanks!! i can now boot into any OS using boot files FROM WINDOWS 7.
Maybe this means its safe for me to delete vista? (obv. with backup of important work)
thnks :)
 
billy09 said:
\"
The easiest way to uninstall Vista is to delete Vista bcd entry with the help of Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies. Then you can format the Vista partition. I recommend this way.\"

are u sure that is 100 percent safe and stuff, and it will work? all memory from it will be unallocated, and then i willl be able to allocate it to my windows 7 hard drive?

heres a screenshot:

View attachment 5221
Click to expand...


I am in fact 100% sure this method is safe and will work since I have used it several times to delete Vista, 7, and Server 2008 :

1. Uninstall the Vista Bootloader

Link Removed due to 404 Error


Link Removed - Invalid URL


2. Format Vista's partition, or utilize it as you like
 
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