trying to uninstall xp

[kjeldoran]

So I'm trying to uninstall XP on an old thinkpad and reinstall win 98 in hopes that it will run a little more smoothly.
To uninstall xp I'm going to the DOS prompt and entering osunist (should work, right?). But when I click enter I receive a message that reads "Cannot uninstall because you do not have the necessary registry information."

What's this about? How can I get around it? I should note that it won't let me uninstall XP in safe mode either.

Thanks a lot!

 

[AnnonUSA]

Uninstall an OS?

Reformat the drive or re-partition. Then clean install 98.

 

[Harvey]

There are several issues you will need to address:

1. Your drive is probably formatted as NTFS. Win 98 requires a different format, FAT32 for larger drives or FAT16 for drives/partitions under 2 GB.

The version of FDISK in Win 98 will not remove the NTFS partion. A program like Partition Magic can do all of your formatting easily and quickly.

Another way to delete the partition is with a program called DELPART.EXE. DELPART.EXE is a genuine Microsoft program that runs from a bootable floppy. It was included with NT 4, but it's no longer available on Microsoft's site. Be careful with it. It WILL remove everything on the target disk.

2. Which reminds me, your machine will probably need a floppy drive or it will have to be new enough to boot from a flash drive formatted with DOS 7 to install Win 98.

3. Before you start, make sure you have ALL of the drivers your machine needs for Win 98.

That said, you didn't tell us about the machine. If your CPU is fast enough and your machine will hold 1 GB of RAM, XP will be much easier to install or keep because it recognizes and has built in drivers for more hardware. If your applications aren't too demanding, or you don't try to keep too many of them open at once, even a little Celeron can give adequate performance with enough RAM.

Hope that helps.

 

[RandomFool]

What are the specs of the machine? I'm not sure the hassle of reinstalling 98 and dealing with any incompatibilities the come up will be worth the performance increase.

 

[0roo0roo]

you don't uninstall o/s. you format that drive

dos prompt within xp?
you can't uninstall anything while its running.

any possible way to install more ram?
old laptops need it bad to run xp. 385-512min

 

[corkyg]

Download free UBCD, burn to a CD, boot with it and reformat your drive.

 

[tranceport]

Sorry, I hate to do this. I really am not this way. I usually really do offer solutions. But in this case....

In all honesty if it won't run XP and you can't use linux then throw it away or donate it.

I would not recommend you go to any win9x os.

 

[Ken90630]

Originally posted by: tranceport
Sorry, I hate to do this. I really am not this way. I usually really do offer solutions. But in this case....

In all honesty if it won't run XP and you can't use linux then throw it away or donate it.

I would not recommend you go to any win9x os.

FWIW, I agree. If you like BSODs, freeze-ups on a regular basis (that Ctrl+Alt+Del often won't help with), those "illegal operation" crashes all the time, horrid driver compatibility, an unstable kernel, defragging your HD once a month, no built-in firewall, no System Restore feature, no ability to run IE7, no more Windows Update security patches (a HUGE problem right there) and more, by all means go back to Windows 98. :evil:

Plus, a lot of software nowadays is only compatible with O.S'.s back to Windows 2000.

Like tranceport said, if you can put enough RAM in the laptop (384-512MB), you'd be better off adding a little RAM, formatting the HD to NTFS, and using XP. Just my $.02 FWIW. Whatever you decide, good luck.

 

[Net]

hmm. if you want something lighter then XP I would go with Windows 2000 instead of 98. more stable in my opinion.

don't have to get this crazy but you could boot with dban and select auto nuke (nuke all drives in computer) http://www.dban.org/