Vista Dual Boot Issue w Windows XP Professional Setup

andrewsinger · December 29th, 2008, 12:18 PM

Hi Guys, this is my first post as a new member. I read these forums often and they are always very useful to help me resolve my issues. Here is my latest issue that I can't seem to find an answer to:

I was loading my old XP Professional Disc onto my HTPC and it failed during the install process. I then decided to finally try out the Vista Ultimate Disc I have had for quite some time (Pre SP1). I loaded Vista with no issues at all and I am really quite happy with it. Now when I boot up though I get a dual boot option for the failed Windows XP Professional Setup and Vista. I can choose Vista and everything works great, but I can't figure out how to get rid of the annoying dual boot option on startup.

I have a 500GB hard drive that is not partitioned. I have used BCDEDIT to try to delete the XP boot choice but it is not listed.

Please help!

Thanks.

Andrew

**RobRich** · December 29th, 2008, 12:25 PM

Welcome to TechIMO!

I have moved your discussion thread to the operating system forum.

The following should get rid of the boot selection menu in Window Vista....

Start ---> Control Panel ---> Advanced System Systems ---> Advanced ---> Startup and Recovery ----> Settings ---> System Startup

Make sure Vista is selected as the default operating system. Enable "Time to display list of operating systems." Set the time to 0 seconds.

andrewsinger · December 30th, 2008, 11:35 AM

Hi Rob, thank you for the warm welcome and the tip. I tried that this morning and it didn't work though. Only Vista was listed and it was already set as the default operation. When I reboot I still get the two choices; Windows XP Professional Setup and Windows Vista. XP Setup is the first choice.

If I choose 0 seconds for the default choice Windows goes in Installation of XP mode so this would prevent me from booting up in Vista altogether.

wizard_of_dns · December 30th, 2008, 01:39 PM

Open the boot.ini file located in C: drive with notepad and delete the XP line. Leave Vista there.

It will look something like this:

Code:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Actually, just copy/paste the contents here so you are told how to do it right.

Might have to turn on "show hidden files and folders."

Did this before with another guys computer.

Edit, You might have two partitions going on there too. Actually three. The very first should be the EISA configuration which is about 50 MB in size.
You will need to go into the control panel / Computer Management / disk management/ storage to delete the partition if it exists. Take a screen shot (Press prt screen/ paste in paint) and post here first. Not sure if Computer Management is in Vista like it is in XP.

andrewsinger · January 9th, 2009, 11:43 AM

Hi Guys, thanks for the helpful comments. I searched for boot.ini but the file doesn't exist in Vista. I read some stuff on the Microsoft IT professionals website and it said that bcd has replaced boot.ini. I have used bcdedit in cmd promt to remove the XP listing but it isn't there either. I am at a loss. Here is a picture I took of the screen on boot up and here is the bcdedit listing. As you can see, only one OS is listed.

Please help if you can! I would hate to format and re-install Vista as I just now how it exactly how I like it. It works very well considering all the negativity surrounding it. This is of course assuming you turn off all the annoying popups and security features!

Andrew

Foggy · January 12th, 2009, 06:07 PM

Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options.

Nude_Lewd_Man · January 12th, 2009, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foggy

Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options.

Unless I'm mistaken, I think he already has...

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewsinger

...I have used bcdedit...

Nude_Lewd_Man · January 19th, 2009, 07:44 PM

Oops... I forgot two things: one being that my work one is Fista, but it doesn't have XP installed on it, other than in a VM; and two, to get back to this...

I've just re-built one of my computers, and I've installed XP Pro and Fista on it (next up, W7..!) so I'll take a look at it tomorrow night and let you know.....

Nude_Lewd_Man · January 26th, 2009, 02:51 PM

Sorry for the delay, been a busy week... Here's the screenie of my XP Pro/Fista Business dual booter......

andrewsinger · January 27th, 2009, 05:05 PM

Hi Guys, thanks for everyone's help and for all your suggestions. Nothing I tried got ride of the dual boot at startup though. I am assuming this is because when I installed Vista it didn't format my drive. You have to go into Advanced options when installing Vista and specify that you want the drive formatted during installation.

In any case, I formatted my drive with a Partition Manager boot Disc, and reloaded Vista. I am good to go now.

Cheers!

Andrew