Windows Boot Manager - Delete a Listed Operating System

Brink · 23 Oct 2009

Hi Nate,

To stop dual booting, you would just make the OS you want to keep the default and delete the other OS entry in MSCONFIG.

In Disk Management, if the default OS is not the boot drive or partition, then you would not just want to delete the drive or partition of the OS that you do not want anymore since it is your boot disk. If you delete the drive or partition that is the boot one, then you would have to repair it using something like this.

MBR - Restore Windows 7 Master Boot Record

nate42nd · 23 Oct 2009

That is well said. I know it's been answered by you many times (I'm sure) so thanks. I have to do many of these now that Windows 7 is "out"

Brink · 23 Oct 2009

You're welcome Nate. :)

nate42nd · 26 Oct 2009

This worked great in Vista! Now I have to do this from within XP and delete the Windows 7 entry and make XP the default. The MSCONFIG tab is a little different. Would I do the same thing? (I don't see a "make settings permanent" option.)

If I go into XPs MSCONFIG and delete the Windows 7 entry. then restart, will it boot onto XP? I think this machine is using the Windows 7 boot loader because XP is listed as "older versions of Windows"

(I don't have an XP install disk, so I don't want to screw it up. haha)

I found this: insert the Windows 7 DVD within XP and run this command

[DVD Drive Letter]:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force

I hope it works.......

apvm · 28 Nov 2009

I have two hard drive, C and D, I installed Windows 7 onto C without problem, D was an older drive with XP which has some backup data I wanted to transfer to C before reformatting it... Both working fine without duel boot screen. But lately I installed a driver and it casued problem which I need to repair computer using the Windows 7 DVD....after that I have a duel boot screen with default Windows 7 (recovered) or earlier version of Windows....the screen only last 3 seconds and it will boot 7. I went to Msconfig but there is no "earlier version of Windows" to delete and the time is set to 3 seonds instead of the 30 you mentioned.

How do I delete this dual boot screen? Tia

Brink · 28 Nov 2009

Hello Apvm,

You can try using EasyBCD in the Add/Remove Entries section to remove the boot entry. Be sure to remove the correct non-default one though.

apvm · 29 Nov 2009

Thanks, is there any other way, I am not really comfortable downloading shareware.

Brink · 29 Nov 2009

I do not blame you, but I can vouch that this program is perfectly safe to use and is 100% malware free. :)

drywallguy · 30 Nov 2009

I got help in this thread before so I thought I had the answer for a friend who was
doing a clean install of 7 over Vista with XP dual boot. No earlier version of Windows in MSCONFIG. Yes Easy BCD will fix this and is a safe download had we thought of it. We used Partition Manager free version from Easeus to remove the
10 MB boot partition from the XP drive. No more dual boot screen.

Valrog · 27 Dec 2009

Hi, I recently installed Windows 7 on a PC that was previously running XP. I did a clean install and deleted Windows.old, but my Boot Manager still shows that I have Older Win System(s) and Ubuntu, and I'm wondering if deleting them from the list is the right way? I can't boot any of those, of course.

I'm just worrying if they are really gone, and are not left somewhere within my PC...

Edit: They're not on the list =/

Thank you for your help.