A while ago my wife bought Windows XP from eBay thinking it was an upgrade, but it turned out to be the full version, and for some reason, full versions of Windows don’t upgrade previous versions.
So, she quit install, and thought that it was over, except now, every time her or I reboot, we keep getting an option to either install Windows XP, or start Windows 98se. It’s automatically set to install, and has a short timer, which, when it runs out, if we don’t catch it in time, will give an error message about a missing dll file, then the computer locks up and we have to reboot again.
So how do we get rid of that boot up option? Thanks.
It has been a long time since I’ve used 98, but you should be able to find, likely under the Advanced tabbed, some Startup and Recovery options.
Did your wife purchase XP Home or Professional Edition?
I don’t recall the details, but some previous versions of Windows could be upgraded and some could not. I believe it was the NT-based systems did not require a complete reinstall.
If you’re up for it, going through the XP install will definitely be worth your time if your other option is 98se.
Technically you can’t. It’s BOOT.INI - the Windows NT\2000\XP boot loader. It looks like you installed XP to either a different partition or didn’t do a reformat of said partition before the reinstall. To fix it, do what collinsc suggests:
Right-click “My Computer” > Properties.
Click the “Advanced” tab > Startup and Recovery > Settings
Make sure that XP is listed in the “Default operating system” box (actually, it should say “Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect (or “XP Home” of course if that’s what you’re running)
Change value of “Time to display list of operating systems” to either 0 or 1.
I’m worried that perhaps you might still be using FAT32 instead of NTFS for your filesystem though. If you open “My Computer” and right click on your system drive does it say FAT32 or NTFS??? FAT32 is TEH DEVIL!
Go to the Control Panel > Add\Remove Programs > Windows Disk and make yourself and Windows 98 floppy disk. Restart the computer, booting off said floppy. Assuming that the partition in question is C:, type the following at the command-prompt:
FDISK /MBR
then type
SYS C:
Remove the disk and reboot. You should be good to go now.
You’ll need to manually edit the file C:\BOOT.INI to remove the entry for Windows XP Setup. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with this though, and if you don’t get it right then your system will not be bootable. It would be best to have an experienced tech do it. At the very least you should make one or more backup copies and know how to restore them in DOS from a Win98 boot disk.
But why do that when FDISK /MBR removes BOOT.INI from the MBR To begin with? It’ll still be on the disk, but it won’t be used and he’ll be able to delete it if he wants to. With your way, if they change BOOT.INI and accidentally (or willfully) delete it six months from now their system won’t boot. With my way it won’t matter.
My wife (gr8kat) did what you said, and everything works fine now. She would thank you herself, but has been busy all day, so I’m thanking you for her. Thanks.
…the full XP Home disc upgraded from 98 fine for me.