windows keep asking me to choose between different windows versions

[cmentvaliantino]

i installed a new copy of window 7 ultimate by formatting my HDD but an option appear for me to choose between earlier version of windows and win 7. How can i stop this?

 

[A Guy]

Welcome to Seven Forums cmentvaliantino. See if this helps you.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2288-operating-system-start-delete-os-list-boot.html

A Guy

 

[Night Hawk]

The easist two obviously are deletion of the "Previous version of Windows" entry by way of the msconfig's boot tab or by a little 3rd party help from the EasyBCD boot loader editing program if you are uncomfortable using the command line BCD editor included in Windows Vista as well as 7.

The other option without any edit would be found in the Control Panel>System>Advanced settings>Start & Recovery where you simply lower the time to display boot options from the default 30 seconds down ot 0 seconds! But that still leaves the boot entry seen with any fresh install of 7 as a boot option. If you are not planning any dual boot you can lower that down as well as see the entry removed once you verify 7 is still set as the default OS.

 

[gregrocker]

You may have reinstalled to another partition and actually have a Dual Boot. In that case we can help you remove the old OS. Please post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Mgmt drive map and listings.

Do you know for sure which partition you installed Win7 upon? Did you pay attention?

What happens if you boot into the Older Version listing on Dual Boot menu? Is it your old OS?

 

[Night Hawk]

He formatted the drive but if there was a previous installation of 7 the 100mb System Reserved partition may be present with the information from the previous install's BCD store. otherwise the default boot screen will show "Previous version of Windows' but was seen with Vista mostly not so much for any clean install of 7.

If this install of Ultimate was on an OEM premade system the hidden recovery partition may have been picked on as well for the previous OEM preinstalled OS resulting in this as well. A good look at the Disk Management tool as gregrocker indicated would be a large help in finding out why you are seeing this appear since a clean install on a fresh primary generally won't see the boot options menu when no other Windows version has been detected.

 

[wanchoo]

Maybe a new MBR is required.

 

[gregrocker]

People use the generic term "Format" to mean many things here, like erasing a partition or HD or even reinstalling. They don't understand that format is just a stage which Win7 installer would handle itself if they didn't do it themselves. It's more important to delete the partition(s) and create again whether they format or not. If there are problems they should use Diskpart Clean Command.

The average user hardly pays attention to which partition they "format" so we see dual boots inadvertently installed a lot here. If OP is then advised to only hide the menu they'll have another OS cluttering their HD.

 

[Night Hawk]

The problem most seen with unintensional dual boots is when someone runs the installer from within an existing copy of Windows and selects the custom option and ends up pointing to another partition or drive and not simply upgrading over the present. The fresh install is still made the default OS automatically.

In that case a look in Windows Explorer for all logical drives shown will generally indicate another Windows installation is present since Windows will automatically assign a drive letter usually D for the other. That offsets the default D for optical drive on the fresh install.

It may also see the E, F, or G drive letter assigned to it provided the previous volume was mounted during the fresh install of 7. Then you would need to go into the DM to locate the volume and right click to assign a drive letter to see it initialized. But that all brings us right back to the need for a look at what the DM will reveal.