Uninstall or Remove Windows 8 from Dual Boot System having Win 7 & Win XP

Updated on: September 12, 2017

All we know that recently Microsoft announced their upcoming version of Windows ‘Windows 8'.It's a totally redesigned OS from Microsoft, having lots of improvements w.r.t performance as well as UI. Metro UI making it more attractive.We already discussed key features of Windows 8 in our earlier post. Many people are using Windows 8 developer preview or consumer preview. Both are development release from Microsoft for checking further compatibility.
Uninstall / Remove Windows 8Our recent Windows 8 post helped many people to dual-boot their systems with win 7 & win XP.We know that it's not a stable release from Microsoft, that's why many users facing incompatibility issues. So they prefer to uninstall Window 8 from their dual-boot.We also got lots of comments regarding ‘Win 8 CP removing process'. After doing some sort of research finally we found out the Safe-Remove process of windows 8, which will keep all your previous os. Before I discuss entire process, you must consider following points without fail.

  • You can uninstall Windows 8 CP/DP only if you have dual boot enable. i.e you must have Win 7 bootloader as default.Your Windows 8 is must installed on a separate partition.If you upgraded your win 7 to win 8 directly then downgrade to Win 7 is not possible. Don't proceed if u have windows 8 default boot loader otherwise, you will lose all your OS & of course your data 🙁
  • To configure Win 8 dual boot with win7 boot loader kindly refer trailing section of our earlier post "Windows 8 Dual boot", it's highly recommended to do this !!! by following proper steps your boot loader look like this

    Installing Windows XP Boot Loader Before Windows 8

    Boot loader for Windows 8

After full filling, all above points, restart your system & Boot it into Windows 8 environment by login with administrator privileged. Now execute following steps:

#Removing Windows 8 from Boot Loader:

1. Navigate to Drive:WindowsSystem32 and open cmd.exe file in administrator privileges(Simply Right-click on cmd.ex & say "Run as administrator")

2. You will see command prompt, in that execute this command

bcdedit /enum /v

3. After executing this command you will get the set of os which is present in the current boot loader.Refer the following image.

Windows 8 boot Identifier code

4. Identify the Windows 8 bootloader by looking at description field and take a note of identifier string in win 8 section (Arrow in above image), Don't copy it otherwise some malfunctioning will happen, type it manually !!!

5. Now execute this command

bcdedit /delete
Example:bcdedit /delete {1p905x4s-d13q-11te-r7c2-e1qw3t86557f}

After removing Windows 8 from boo

6.After successful execution of above command, you will remove Win 8 from boot menu, now your bootloader look like this 🙂

Removing Win8 from boot menu

Removing Win8 from boot menu

# Removing partition

1. In above process we just broke the link of win8 & boot loader, now we have to remove the partition.To do this reboot your PC & boot it into win 7/win XP

2. Now you will see Win 8 drive, simply format it by Right-clicking-> format

Formatting Windows 8 partition

3. This will remove all folders and files associated with win 8 and now you can utilize that drive for storage purpose

4. Enjoy your old version of windows till Windows 8 will have stable release 🙂

I personally successfully uninstall win 8 from my system. If you have any queries kindly share with us, we will try to solve them.

Uninstall  remove Windows 8 safely
Post Tags: #delete windows 8 #remove win 8 boot menu #remove windows 8 #uninstall win 8 consumer preview
Saurabh Mukhekar
Saurabh Mukhekar is a Professional Tech Blogger. World Traveler. He is also thinker, maker, life long learner, hybrid developer, edupreneur, mover & shaker. He's captain planet of BlogSaays and seemingly best described in rhyme. Follow Him On Facebook

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  1. great article have been worrying how to remove windows 8 with a dual boot. As always a great informative article and can't wait for the new stabilzed version of windows 8 . I guess you will be keeping us updated when this will be . Thanks for sharing

  2. Great answer. I'm 78 years old and wish you could uninstall win 8 for me. Not sure I can do this.

  3. Great article. I just installed Win8 Pro and this article showed me how to get rid of Windows7. Windows7 is a good operating system but Windows 8 is much better!!! Now my Win8 machine boots even faster!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Thanks,

    Anonymous
    NOTEs:
    1) I would identify myself but you don't require Windows Live ID signin. I consider it a security problem when blogs don't require Windows Live ID signin for comments since those blogs allow people to impersonate someone else way too easily. Because of this, I can not identify myself on this site.

    2) Despite Microsoft liberal position, I tend to prefer heterosexual relationships.

  4. this is my problem .
    I hv sony vaio sve15125cn with win8 , now I want to install win7 (another drive) also ,but I hv got error" drive 0 partition n are gpt ".
    how can install win7 ???
    thanks .

    1. Hi look like some issue is their in GPT,as you are trying to install Win7 into fresh copy of win8. see this https://goo.gl/n1rH2 it will help you for sure.But keep in mind before doing any step 1st take your backup into other portable hard derive. Let me know if you need any help

    1. Hi Don
      Your variable(PATH) should include the C:\ Windows\ System32 and C:\ Windows folders, because of that it's not finding that command
      Please fix it by using following steps :

      - Click Start: right-click "Computer", and select "Properties"

      - Click "Advanced System Settings" in the left pane area

      - Click on the "Advanced" tab

      - Click on the "Environment Variables..." button which is near to bottom of the dialogue box

      - update the value of the PATH variable which is at the upper box if it still there, or in the lower box if it doesn't available there. Make sure to separate each folder-name with a ";" (semi-colon).

      let me know if you need any help regarding same.

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