[Kimmer62]

I am not sure how... but we ended up with two WindowsXP Media Center Edition on our desktop. How do I delete the one that is not in use?

Thanks,

Kim

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[phillipcorcoran]

http://www.ehow.com/...on-windows.html

[Macboatmaster]

Same instructions. - links are active.

CAUTION - before proceeding ARE you certain you do have TWO separate installations. This is ONLY normally achievable by actually installing it, without formatting and usually done deliberately to install and use, when the other installation is corrupt, known as a parallel install.
See this
http://support.micro...kb/978307/en-us

I would URGE caution, although the method is described on the link sent by "phillipcorcoran" and here below. You MAY find that due to the nature of the registry setup and many other things on an XP install, that various aspects will NOT work after following the procedure.

I have two installations of XP on the same partition.......

• Boot to the desired version of Windows XP you want to keep. Making note of the position in the boot menu. This will be important when you edit
• Open a command prompt and type " %windir%" without the quotes. This will give you the current Windows folder you are using.
• From Explorer, delete the folder containing the installation you want to remove. The original install folder is usually called Windows and subsequent folders will be derivatives of Windows or Winnt.
• From System Properties [Winkey+Pause/Break] > Advanced Tab > Startup and Recovery > Settings > Edit.
• Select the Edit button and from notepad, first backup boot.ini, by going to File; Save As and rename boot.ini. to something like boot.inibak.
• Remove the line referencing the installation not chosen; you made note of in step one.
• Set timeout=0 so the system boots directly into Win XP (you will not get the boot menu).
• Save As boot.ini & Exit.
• Reboot.

To access the command prompt: Start>All Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt or from Start>RUN>Type "CMD" without the quotes, then press OK.

Printable Text version of I have two installations of XP...............

Edited by Macboatmaster, 12 February 2011 - 03:49 PM.

[Kimmer62]

Thank you for your help... I am not sure I did have two operating systems because I never found a folder with a second Windows installation. So I went to my bootloader and tried changing that but then it wouldn't start I would get the message about having a missing hal.dll... which I had found several when i searched for them but obviously they are in the wrong place. So once i got it up again I replaced the new boot.ini with the old one and am back to square one.

It appears I have two partitions and I think I may be working on the second one, though it is the biggest one.

Here is the original boot.ini file that makes me pick which windows to open up in:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /fastdetect

The "correct" windows is the Windows XP Media Center one which if I read this the wayI think it is read is in the second partition. If I choose the Windows XP Media Center Edition one I get the missing the hal.dll command. I tried changing it to:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS1
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center" /fastdetect

and that didn't work AT All...

I can live with it the way it is because the correct one is one the top and if it reboots for some reason it is the default one. So I will keep it this way unless you all have any other easy suggestion?

Thanks,

Kim

[Macboatmaster]

Go Control Panel, computer management, disk management WHAT size is the partition that you8 say will not boot.

It certainly will not boot on the boot ini you created
\WINDOWS1 as you have named it Windows1

This is the original
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center"

which I understand you to say is the one that does boot.

This is the one you created
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS1 - as above this will NOT work.
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center" /fastdetect



TO SAVE yourself a lot of work and the strong possibility of creating problems GO HERE as per my screenshot and set the default operating system boot to the one you want on the original working boot.ini

Edited by Macboatmaster, 14 February 2011 - 12:14 PM.