Hi, Dabbler.
> Thanks for explaining what BCD stood for because when I was young it stood
> for Binary Coded Decimal numbers. What a difference, huh? 
That BCD was a part of EBCDIC, right? I had only a passing acquaintance
with that because it was mostly for computers much bigger than the ones that
I was interested in. ;^}
> I might even replace Vista with a Linux distro to play with, at least
> temporarily, but in that case I should be able to dual boot into Win7 and
> Linux.
I know nothing of Linux except what I read in NGs like this.
I've been dual-booting since Win95/NT4.0 in about 1998, but always with
Windows versions only.
> Anyway, when I installed Win7 on my laptop that had Vista in one
> partition, the installer automatically set me up for dual boot.
Right. When we follow the Golden Rule that I mentioned, the latest Setup
handles all that automatically.
> So I was wondering what I would have to do to eventually remove Vista and
> allocate the whole drive to Win7 that is the first partition on the drive
> right now.
Most users - even veterans - don't realize that Windows always installs
itself in TWO segments. The large segment (maybe 10 GB or more in Win7)
goes into the \Windows folder tree on the partition where we tell Setup to
install it. That partition becomes the Boot Volume and the \Windows folder
the Boot Folder. But there is a very small (< 1 M
segment that ALWAYS
goes into the System Partition. As I said earlier, this is NOT ALWAYS the
first partition on the first HDD, but it usually is. The actual location is
the Active (bootable) primary partition on the HDD currently designated in
the BIOS as the boot device. But any primary partition or any logical drive
in an extended partition on any HDD in the computer can become the Boot
Volume for a Windows installation.
Most computer users have only a single HDD and many (most?) of those have
only a single partition, so that previous paragraph is academic for them:
EVERYTHING is in Drive C:. But, even then, boot-up starts in the System
Partition and then progresses to the Boot Volume. It just happens that both
the System Partition and the Boot Volume are Drive C:.
Most users never quite get straight the "backwards" definitions of "System
Partition" and "Boot Volume". But this distinction is critical to
understanding dual-booting - and even to a proper understanding of
mono-booting. As many have said, we BOOT from the System Partition and keep
the operating SYSTEM files in the BOOT volume. The reasons for this are
somewhere in computer antiquity and we are not likely to see them changed,
so we just have to get familiar with them. See:
Definitions for system volume and boot volume
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/
> wondering what I would have to do to eventually remove Vista and allocate
> the whole drive to Win7 that is the first partition on the drive right
> now.
So ALL you need to do to remove Vista is boot into Win7 and delete Vista's
Boot Folder. Since Vista was installed first, it probably is C
Windows.
Win7 Setup may have assigned C: to its own boot volume and another letter -
probably D: - to the System Partition. If that is true, then the command to
delete C
Windows will be refused, since no OS will delete its own boot
folder. But to Win7, Vista's boot folder is "just another folder and Win7
will happily delete that. So, just tell Win7 to delete D
Windows. That
will leave the System Partition intact, except that all of Vista will be
gone.
Then all you have to do is edit the BCD on D: to remove the reference to
Vista. That's where you'll use BCDEdit.exe or one of the third-party BCD
editors. You don't actually have to do this edit, but it might be a source
of confusion until you do.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
"Dabbler" <dabbler@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:hjobsv$geh$1@speranza.aioe.org...
> "R. C. White" <rc@grandecom.net> wrote in message
> news:laidndAVJM5Ai8PWnZ2dnUVZ_rWdnZ2d@posted.grandecom...
>> Hi, Dabbler.
>>
>> Dual-boot with which other OS? Another Windows? Or with Linux or some
>> other non-MS OS?
>>
>> The only time that Win7 (or Vista) uses boot.ini (or NTLDR or
>> NTDETECT.COM) is when you are dual-booting with WinXP (or Win2K).
>>
>> Be sure to follow the Golden Rule of dual-booting: Install the newest
>> Windows LAST. Win7 Setup.exe knows what to do when it finds WinXP
>> already installed, but WinXP has no idea how to handle Win7, which didn't
>> exist when WinXP Setup was written. If you install WinXP after Win7,
>> then you'll have to run Win7 Setup again to let it re-write the startup
>> files that WinXP's Setup will have overwritten.
>>
>> The Windows boot process always starts in the System Partition
>> (typically - but no necessarily - the first partition on the first HDD)
>> and then branches to whichever partition on whichever HDD holds the
>> Windows installation that we choose from the opening menu. WinXP uses
>> NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM to start and boot.ini to hold the menu of OSes.
>> Win7 uses the file bootmgr and the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) held in
>> the Boot folder. In either system, all these startup files and folder
>> must be in the Root of the System Partition and they all have the System
>> and Hidden attributes.
>
> Thanks for explaining what BCD stood for because when I was young it stood
> for Binary Coded Decimal numbers. What a difference, huh?
> Anyway, when I installed Win7 on my laptop that had Vista in one
> partition, the installer automatically set me up for dual boot. So I was
> wondering what I would have to do to eventually remove Vista and allocate
> the whole drive to Win7 that is the first partition on the drive right
> now. I might even replace Vista with a Linux distro to play with, at least
> temporarily, but in that case I should be able to dual boot into Win7 and
> Linux.