How do you wrestle a PC back from Vista?

February 1st, 2008, 12:11 am

OK, I have this problem. My kid installed Vista Home Premium on another partition along side XP. I can't run Vista, my apps aren't supported on it and I hate all the popup windows, slow typing crap, ... MS has decided unilaterally that Vista becomes the default boot volume when it and XP are present. So every time I start up or reboot the system, I get a menu defaulting to Vista and if I do nothing, it boots into Vista. I can't get it to boot from XP by default and get rid of that damn menu. I ran bootcfg.exe and it reports XP as the ONLY boot partition so obviously boot.ini is being overriden by something in Vista. One of the guys at work mentioned that I have to boot into Vista and change some config option to get the machine to switch back to booting from XP but he didn't know how to do it. Anyone here know what to change under Vista?

Update 2/2/08: There is no more boot.ini file, Vista removed it and replaced it with it's own bootloader which is incompatible with just about every utility out there. I can't even boot up with a Linux DVD anymore.

bossman2 · February 2nd, 2008, 12:27 am

Only Tony....

February 2nd, 2008, 12:20 pm

It's bad. Vista has taken over the machine, MS now controls my PC and there's only one way to go back to XP. You have to use the XP boot CD's recovery mode - too bad my screen goes black when I try to boot from it. I think the NVidia card doesn't like XP's cheap DOS-like blue windows so it displays nothing. With no display, it's kind of hard to type in commands like fixboot and fixmbr.

Let this be a warning to everyone. Vista is SLOWWWW compared to XP and if you don't like it, there's no way to go back easily. DON'T INSTALL VISTA IF YOU EVER WANT TO GO BACK TO XP!!!

February 2nd, 2008, 12:53 pm

Yee ha! I nailed Billy Boy's ass! Hahahahahaha, I win!!!

Here's the solution, the ONLY one that worked for me:

http://www.windowsvista.windowsreinstal ... Option%202

It overwrites the Vista bootloader with NTLDR and now the machine boots up into XP all by itself!! Not sure how to get rid of all the Vista crap on the drives but this is what I wanted to accomplish. No more slow Vista, I got my fast XP machine back.

bossman2 · February 2nd, 2008, 3:21 pm

Ahhh.... I see you finally started using google to find a solution, good job. If I remember right reading one of those sites I sent you Vista does not use ntdr or boot.ini which is the problem with going back to XP from Vista. I have the new computer and I'll experiment with this sort of thing using XP/Vista and Linux/Solaris. I'm sure I can make a multi boot multi OS system just using versions of Windoz...

February 2nd, 2008, 4:10 pm

bossman2 wrote:I'm sure I can make a multi boot multi OS system just using versions of Windoz...

Not with the Vista bootloader. Even CentOS wouldn't boot off DVD but now that I'm back to NTLDR, the CentOS DVD boots... I don't know what MS did with the Vista bootloader but it doesn't like anything other than Windows boot CDs.

bossman2 · February 3rd, 2008, 1:02 am

Tony your computer is weird that it will not boot off anything but a Windows CD. When you tell the bios to boot from the CD first, it should take whatever is there and ignore the HD. I don't know Tony, I think you've been smokin some bad stuff.... I just looked at your manual for your moutherboard, and I'll bet that in the bios you have the default for boot sequence where it can try other devices if it can't boot from the first device in the list. Disable all other devices and the disable the "boot other device" option in the bios (see section 3.3 on page 3-12). Then it should not boot from the HD ever, but if it never boots to anything then your CD or CD reader is bad, which I'll bet is the problem. I've had this happen to me before where I could not understand why I could not boot from the CD. I know you can boot from windoz CDs. Are those factor CD's vs ones that you burned yourself?? Your home made CDs maybe incompadable with your CD reader but the Windoz CD are fine, I've seen this before too... But anyway we'll see, but first I need to buy a version of Vista but so far everyone that I know that's in the know about using it says don't waste your money or time, use XP Pro for 32bit systems and XP Pro for 64bit systems. Next computer show I go to I'll see if I can get Vista for a "good" price...LOL
I should be able to install XP on the "C:" partition, make an image of it, then install Vista on the "D:" partition at which time it will most likely clobber the XP install and the boot loader in the "C:" partition. I'll make an image of just the "D:' partition and then reload/wipe the disk with the first "C:" partition image, make a "D:" partition and load the "D:" partition Vista image on that. Then mod the boot.ini on the reloaded "C:" partition and allow it to point to either the C: XP or the D: Vista. I won't be able to use the "enhanced" security features of Vista boot program (like I care and think it's all that secure) but that's OK. I suppose I can be a cheapo dego and get the home starter version of Vistsa..LOL

February 3rd, 2008, 12:25 pm

My bad, the CentOS DVD boots on my Windows VM laptop, NOT on the AMD machine. For some reason, the CentOS DVD is showing up as empty in XP and won't boot the machine but it's fine on my laptop. It's a DVD-RW DVD and both machines are compatible with that format. Odd.

Bossman, listen to all the comments about Vista and don't waste your money on it. More so, don't waste your valuable time because it's a fucked-up MS-booby-trapped (and not the kind of boobies we like) piece of shit. I can't believe how slow it is, it feels so bloated as to be almost unusable on my 2.2 GHZ desktop. XP runs fast on that machine so it's got to be Vista that sucks the big one. There's a reason why MS is forcing the computer vendors to load Vista on new machines. It's because no one will run it voluntarily and MS is having a hard time selling it. Word travels quickly.

It's funny, but each release of Windows gets slower than the one before it. Each release of MacOS X gets faster than the one before it. Now who do you think is headed in the right direction, Apple or MS?

bossman2 · February 3rd, 2008, 5:23 pm

Tony I had compatibility problems between CD/DVD players one will read a CD just fine, the other won't and they're supposed to work to the same standards. Most likely your CD player in your AMD box is bad somehow..
Replace your CD on the AMD box and see what happens...

Yea I won't waste any time on Vista for now, waiting for SP1 first. And talk about getting bigger with each OS release, W98 ~200K, W2K ~1G, XP ~5G, so if they follow this Vista should take about 25G of space to install,... arg..
But I disagree, my XP is faster than my W2K, on all machines. But Vista, it's a piece of crap..

My Bluesky profile · February 4th, 2008, 1:01 am

bossman2 wrote:Tony your computer is weird that it will not boot off anything but a Windows CD. When you tell the bios to boot from the CD first, it should take whatever is there and ignore the HD. I don't know Tony, I think you've been smokin some bad stuff.... I just looked at your manual for your moutherboard, and I'll bet that in the bios you have the default for boot sequence where it can try other devices if it can't boot from the first device in the list. Disable all other devices and the disable the "boot other device" option in the bios (see section 3.3 on page 3-12). Then it should not boot from the HD ever, but if it never boots to anything then your CD or CD reader is bad, which I'll bet is the problem. I've had this happen to me before where I could not understand why I could not boot from the CD. I know you can boot from windoz CDs. Are those factor CD's vs ones that you burned yourself?? Your home made CDs maybe incompadable with your CD reader but the Windoz CD are fine, I've seen this before too... But anyway we'll see, but first I need to buy a version of Vista but so far everyone that I know that's in the know about using it says don't waste your money or time, use XP Pro for 32bit systems and XP Pro for 64bit systems. Next computer show I go to I'll see if I can get Vista for a "good" price...LOL
I should be able to install XP on the "C:" partition, make an image of it, then install Vista on the "D:" partition at which time it will most likely clobber the XP install and the boot loader in the "C:" partition. I'll make an image of just the "D:' partition and then reload/wipe the disk with the first "C:" partition image, make a "D:" partition and load the "D:" partition Vista image on that. Then mod the boot.ini on the reloaded "C:" partition and allow it to point to either the C: XP or the D: Vista. I won't be able to use the "enhanced" security features of Vista boot program (like I care and think it's all that secure) but that's OK. I suppose I can be a cheapo dego and get the home starter version of Vistsa..LOL

You know...the totally whack thing is that I actually understand half of what Bossman is saying...LOL

Thank Goddess that I'm stuck with my nice little Compaq Presario 330 Celeron D processor with XP Service Pack 2 (awating Service Pack 3 to be released soon by Microsoft as soon as they have drained all those fools who upgraded to Vista of their money).

If you buy a new PC or laptop that is already stocked with XP, you might be able to get by. If you attempt to install Vista into a PC with a preexisting system like XP or even *nix, then heaven help you.

The DRM fiasco alone would be enough for me.

Ever thought about wiping the whole thing and starting clean installing something like Ubuntu or Red Hat Suse or any other variation of desktop Linux, Tony???

Anthony

bossman2 · February 4th, 2008, 3:54 am

The problem with getting a laptop with XP at the "normal store" is they don't do that. You have to buy XP and load it yourself or have them do it for you and spend $$$ doing it. I think retail for XP pro is like $300 and then they have to install it, unless you think you can.
For Tony he wants his XP load as it is and not have to spend a bunch of time reloading it as he needs it for work and he's on a timeline crunch. So he'll limp along until he has time to fix it. What a pain...
BTW it would appear that SP3 for XP is now just released, see:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en
I googled XP SP3 and found:
http://www.google.com/search?q=XP+SP3&i ... =firefox-a
Some interesting articles there, I'll read them tomorrow.

LauraJebAndSue · February 4th, 2008, 11:14 am

OK,

Crap on all this geek Vista XP quacking!!!

Just figure out and tell us all how to get Vicky more Booble votes! We 2 dumb blonds and Jebby a smart PC dude do not know how to out smart them!

Laura

John_fromNY · February 4th, 2008, 8:31 pm

Laura, I'll tend to agree with you. The dialogue that Tony, Anthony and Bossman are having here is like a totally different language.

LauraJebAndSue · February 5th, 2008, 1:36 am

John NYC boy.

3 hugs for Football and Eli.

Tell these geeks, We all need "How to Vote" Vicky # 1 Boole!!!

3 CrapS ON all geek studs! Till they help us ALL with this VNA missoon!

BOOBLE = # 1 vICKY over 1725 now!!

laura

Steinar · February 5th, 2008, 10:46 am

John_fromNY wrote:Laura, I'll tend to agree with you. The dialogue that Tony, Anthony and Bossman are having here is like a totally different language.

I think it is Greek.....

February 5th, 2008, 11:58 am

I never read this forum.

bossman2 · February 7th, 2008, 1:37 am

John_fromNY wrote:Laura, I'll tend to agree with you. The dialogue that Tony, Anthony and Bossman are having here is like a totally different language.

Now Johny, we all know that you understand what we're talking about, you're just being modest...

LauraJebAndSue · February 7th, 2008, 4:48 am

bossman2 wrote:
John_fromNY wrote:Laura, I'll tend to agree with you. The dialogue that Tony, Anthony and Bossman are having here is like a totally different language.
Now Johny, we all know that you understand what we're talking about, you're just being modest...

Ok Bossman, Tony and John boy, We 3 Love Vista / Xp issues and bet if I wake up Jebby, that he may understand some of this geek "Greek as Steinar knows best!" chat.

But help us all you Geeks, HOW MORE VOTES for Vicky on Booble???

We have all of our friends voting and so far Vicky is #1 but Spanks chick did something less than maybe legal last Year and we support Vicky to the end!!

Those Booble Geeks are smart basterds, and if only one vote per person is very fare, we naughty 3 agree, Just do not want anyone to cheat Vicky out of $5K IF geek powers at VNA is sleeping?

OK Vicky $3K goes to Trio for helping? ha Ha!!!

Laura

PS Vicky, we do not read this one much either, But MUST support U!!!

bossman2 · February 7th, 2008, 11:26 pm

I need to try dialup with another computer. It would appear that Booble tracks booth IP and cookies, and if there are traces of your Vickyathome account on that computer (cookies). So go to another computer, go to booble and vote or use dialup on your computer and use a clean web browser (delete all info for the browser cookies, cache, etc). That should work. It would appear that the proxy server loophole has been closed but I'll try that too, you know inquiring minds (or mindless) want to know!!!

WalterB · February 8th, 2008, 10:11 am

stickyvicky wrote:I never read this forum.

Yeah, we noticed BWA-ha-ha-ha!!!

RE: Booble voting LJS. Simply rebooting my modem seems to do it for me. I shut down everything each nite, so get a new IP each morning. Booble so far has taken all my votes -- oops, I mean my one vote teehee.

How do you wrestle a PC back from Vista?

Login • Register