Hi, Cameo.
Two easy steps:
1. Delete the Vista OS entirely by deleting its Windows folder, including
that entire folder tree. Just boot into Win7, make sure you know which
drive Vista's OS is on. If Win7 sees it as Drive V:, then browse to Drive
V: in Windows Explorer in Win7 and Delete that V:\Windows folder. That's
all it takes to get rid of any OS other than the one currently running. And
no OS that I know of will delete ITS OWN \Windows folder, because that would
be like committing suicide.
2. To clean up the opening menu and eliminate Vista, you can edit the BCD
(Boot Configuration Data) with BCDEdit.exe (or one of several third-party
apps, like EasyBCD), but that is not strictly required. It's just neater.
If Vista is not there (see step 1) then it can't be booted, even if you
choose it from the menu.
If you are comfy at the Command Prompt, you can do step 1 with the Remove
Directory (rd or rmdir) command:
rd v:\windows
It will balk, informing you that the folder is not empty. Then simply add
the /s switch:
rd v:\windows /s
After you confirm that, Yes, you really want to do this, it will delete the
entire folder tree, including the thousands of files, under V:\Windows,
which wipes out the OS in that partition.
Just remember that you can't delete any OS while running that OS, so you'll
have to be in Win7 to delete Vista (or vice versa), and it is NOT easy to
delete the wrong one.
Or, if there's nothing on that partition that you want to keep, just use
Disk Management to reformat it - or delete the partition. Then you can
extend the Win7 partition to use that space, or create a new partition
there.
Has any of you done what I am trying to do here?
Yes, I've been multi-booting for a dozen years and have done this many
times, especially when installing a newer build of Vista or Win7 during beta
testing. Step 1: Delete the old OS's \Windows folder. Step 2: Clean up
the opening menu. Step 3: No step 3; we're done. ;<)
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-9/30/10)
Windows Live Mail Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3508.1109) in Win7 Ultimate x64
SP1
"Cameo" wrote in message
I have a Win7-64 and Vista 32 dual booting laptop where each OS is in
separate partition. I am not really using Vista anymore and would like
to get rid off it and just boot into Win7 alone. Then I could reclaim
the Vista partition for Win7 as well.
I am not familiar with the multi-boot scheme of Win7 and I wonder if
somebody could set me in the right direction with it. I've heard about
the EasyBCD program but I didn't find a good documentation for it. The
one that is on the NeoSmart site does not even mention Win7 as a
supported OS. Has any of you done what I am trying to do here?
Thanks.
