REMOVE VISTA .com


Remove Vista, as an upgrade of Windows XP

In this case you had Windows XP installed and upgraded it to Windows Vista. Now you want your own Windows XP back. Unfortunately it's not possible to downgrade Vista to XP. Therefore you'll need to remove Vista, format your hard drive, and reinstall XP from scratch.

Don't forget to make a backup as there are some risks with removing Vista!

This is what you need:

- Windows XP installation CD
- MS Dos environment boot disk (more info)

This is what you should do:

1. Start your computer with the Windows XP installation CD in your CDROM drive (note: you may have to change your BIOS settings to give priority to loading your CDROM drive instead of your hard drive!)
2. In the setup type R to repair an existing installation
3. Type fixboot C:\ (where C:\ is your Vista root, replace C with any other letter if applicable)
4. Type fixmbr C:\
5. Type EXIT
6. Then close the Windows XP setup and restart your computer with the bootable floppy or CD
7. At the command prompt type format C:\ (note: all data on C:\ will be removed, so make sure you've made a backup before doing this!)
8. Now restart your computer with the Windows XP installing CD in your CDROM drive
9. Install Windows XP as usual

This should remove your Windows Vista installation and make XP the default operating system.