How do I uninstall Win98 from a Win98/W2k dual boot

[damngood]

I've searched Microsoft's website and Google, but all I was able to find were ways to remove W2k. Is it possible to remove Win98 w/o having to format and start all over? Is there an easy process to remove Windows98 and leave W2k?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Naturally Microsoft isn't going to tell you how to remove one of their OSes.

Google Groups is another place that's good to search, especially for things like this. Google web search didn't turn up anything (it really is odd that the only things any sites discuss is going back to Win98). Google Groups quickly found a couple of posts though.

Boot into Win2k, open the boot.ini file in the root directory of the C drive (it is a hidden file) and delete the entry for Win98, it should be a single line, with the other line being for Win2k. Then delete the bootsect.dos file, and delete the Windows directory (assuming that you have Win2k installed to a separate directory, and you don't need anything in the Windows directory; if you want to go through the Windows directory later to make sure all your data files are gone, it's not necessary to delete it immediately, as once you've stopped the dual boot it just becomes a plain directory instead of being an OS directory).

Since Win2k's bootloader is installed into the MBR, that means that nothing of Win98 is there to worry about. In a way, Win2k is in control from the start then passes the boot process to Win98. The process of removing Win2k from a dual boot takes more steps because of this.

 

[AndyHui]

Please read the FAQ: How do I remove an OS from dual boot?

 

[Lord Evermore]

I really hate "read the FAQ" posts.

At any rate, perhaps that one should be renamed "how to remove Windows 98 from an NT/2k/XP dual boot", considering that's the only thing it explains, rather than how to remove any OS from any dual boot.

 

[AndyHui]

Perhaps you want to rewrite the FAQ, Lord Evermore? Or perhaps contribute to ANY FAQ?

The information is all there....people simply need to read it. I put a lot of time and effort into writing these. Do you have a better suggestion?

For what it's worth, I shouldn't need to write "Please read the FAQ:......". But I still do.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I'm not allowed to suggest a way to make that one better? Just because I don't write entire FAQs means a slight suggestion from me is valueless? Does your personal perception of me alter the fact that the title is misleading?

I personally don't care about the FAQs, they're another place to find information, but the "command" for someone to go read the FAQ section every time they ask a question irks me. I don't want to read every last article there, and I don't want to have to sift through every title to find out if there's been a FAQ every time I have the slightest question. And searching certainly doesn't work well enough for me to put effort into trying to figure out every possible combination of words or spelling before determining that there is no article about what I'm looking for. For reference, using Win98 and remove (or uninstall) doesn't bring up that article, because you (generic "you" in this case referring to the author and the maintainer of the FAQs) happened to use "Windows 98" as the only reference to Windows 98. The same can be said for references to Windows 2000, because you use "W2K" or the full name, while I use Win2k. I personally never use that particular abbreviation and would have searched for Win2k (and if I'd used "w2k" with the word uninstall, it wouldn't have found the article). Heck, I just tested even more, and even using the name Windows 2000 won't cause that article to show up in a search, either with "remove" or "uninstall" and with or without boolean AND in the name, because the author never once referenced it by the full name. The same for "Windows 98" and the word uninstall.

If I search Google and find zero references to something, it's usually because it either doesn't exist or is very low in the index tree (or isn't indexed), but I can presume that it's not simply because nobody else spells it the way I do. The same can be said for the AT Forums, due to the large number of total posts; someone at some time was bound to spell it the way I do. The same can't be said for the FAQs, because in this case, for a particular topic, you have only the phrasing and spelling of one person, and if I don't spell it that way, I'm out of luck in searching.

The indexing by alphabetical order of the first letter of course is also not exactly helpful, since "How" is a pretty common first word in the topics, and as I said, I won't spend my time scrolling through a list of every topic trying to figure out whether one of them might contain the information I need. And as I also pointed out, in this case the title is misleading; if I'd been searching for how to remove Win2k, I might have spent time reading the article for no reason.

Before you say that I could always contribute to helping make the FAQs better, I can head it off by repeating, I don't care about the FAQs. If I happen to be talking about one, I might suggest a change to that particular article, but I'm not spending my time going through and finding ways to improve the entire system. I'm not the one who got the idea, I don't have a need to promote them, I don't reference people to a flawed system and make it seem like they're committing some major crime by not using the FAQ section.

You shouldn't need to write "please read the FAQ", you're right in that. The fact that you do though is because you desire to do so, not because it needs to be done. The FAQ section is there, it's an option, another resource for people to use if they want to, and you're free to suggest that people do so and remind them the section is there. I remind people regularly that Google exists when it seems they haven't bothered to check it. But I don't usually make it a commandment that they must go serve penance for not having searched it.

 

[AndyHui]

Never is "Please read the FAQ:..." a command.

It is always a suggestion, otherwise I wouldn't put "Please" on it. Nor do I suggest people read all of the FAQs.

Never have I suggested, required or demanded penance for forum members not reading my articles.

It's not necessary to sift through all of the FAQs. I have deliberately made the titles of various FAQs a little more generic in the hope that the contents will apply to the reader. In most cases, the FAQs have been written to cover as much as possible.

The FAQs are organised along the lines of categories that correspond to the forum categories here, and always has been. The alphabetical listing is a recent addition, as is the search system. If the search system is not up to your liking, then you may want to take it up with Zuni.

If an exact semantic match does not come up, there's not much I can do about that.....it is an issue that occurs with every search engine unless there is some sort of fuzzy logic.

If you do not care about the FAQs, and then criticise my posts without offering a reasonable solution, then I believe that is unfair both to me, and to the writers who put a great deal of time and effort into the articles.

I aim to offer help to as many people as quickly as possible.

I have a great deal of respect for you, Lord Evermore. My personal perception of you has nothing to do with this.