Thread: How to Remove Windows 8 from a Windows 7 Dual Boot scenario

Had all the fun you can stand? Want to get back to just plain old Windows 7 and remove all remnants of the Windows 8 Developers Preview? Want to wait until the next iteration or Beta Release which should be coming soon? This video will hopefully get you through the process.
Good luck and Best Wishes
Randy

This tutorial will work well in Virtual Box. But if you have a dual boot on 2 real partitions, you have to make 2 additional steps to cleanup the MBR.


MBR - fix after deleted dual boot


Scenario: Let's take the case where your system was running two Operating Systems (e.g. Windows 7 and Windows 8 Developer Preview) in double boot. One day you decided to delete Windows 8. You delete the Windows 8 partition and remove the Windows 8 BCD from the bootmgr.

But when you boot your remaining Windows 7, instead of booting into Windows 7 directly, the BIOS still presents the black screen where you have to select the OS - although there is only one OS. This is not a disaster, but it is an unnecessary step that requires your intervention.

The reason for that behavior is that the MBR is still set to dual boot and it is the MBR that the BIOS checks for the boot option. With the two steps in this tutorial, you can fix that behavior so that the system boots directly into Windows 7 again.

Important: You absolutely have to execute both steps of this tutorial. If you only do Step 1, your system will not boot any more.

The program we use for that is EasyBCD which you can download from here.

Step 1 - Clean the MBR





Step 2 - Reset the MBR with the Windows 7 entry