Remove Vista 64

[Guest]

Hello,
I have XP Pro 32bit running on 1 drive and installed Vista Ultimate 64bit on
another drive. I get a boot screen which askes me what to load, that works
fine. I can't get my settings from XP Pro 32 to Vista Ultimate 64, tried file
trandfer a number of times, and some of my hardware, network card, don't
work. I can't get on line with Vista 64 and I'm thinking about changing to
the 32bit version. Can I install the 32bit version over the 64? If not, will
formating the drive be my best chose and will it get rid of all Vista 64 or
will I have to do more?

 

[Michael Jennings]

It depends on which is drive zero. To see which that is, in Search type
Computer Management > click on the Program > tell UAC Continue >
click on Disk Management in the left window (under Storage) > see.

If the XP drive is Disk 0, then if 32bit Vista won't install over 64bit,
format the 64bit Vista on drive 1 and then 32bit Vista should go in.
If the XP drive is Disk 1 and Vista is Disk 0, it's more complicated.

 

[Guest]

Well, I give up. I formated the drive, clean loaded Vista 32 but I still can
not get on line or transfer settings. Everytime I go back to XP Pro and save
files & settings, Vista can't read them, incompatible versions. Can I load
vistas file transfer from the dvd into XP?

 

[Michael Jennings]

Vista 32 is less troublesome than Vista 64 - you did manage to switch.
I don't know why you can't get on line - is that just from Vista or both?
The files and settings transfer should be done from Vista, not XP.

You should be aware that if both XP and Vista are aware of each other,
and you don't have restore points turned off for the Vista drive, then
each time you boot XP, Vista's system restore will be corrupted. This
is a dual boot issue that people are now figuring out how to deal with.

I don't know the Vista transfer tool - I will have to find about that.

 

[Michael Jennings]

migwiz is the name of the tool. It is not designed to move settings from
one drive to another on the same computer. The simplest way to handle
it is to pretend that you don't have a connection. Type " migwiz " without
the quotes in Vista's Start Search window, then click on it up above.
Tell it this is your new computer. Tell it you have to make a CD for the
old computer. When it does that, shut Vista down and start XP. Run
the CD. Migwiz will collect data from XP then, but also from the Vista
drive, which you don't want, so you'll have to edit what you want to
bring over - select Custom. If you'd rather go with Everything, then
disconnect the Vista drive - only have XP visible for migwiz to see.
Then burn DVDs, shut down XP, start Vista and point migwiz at
the DVDs you burned in Windows XP. If you can figure out how
to dump what you want from the XP drive to the Vista drive by
browsing migwiz to a location there, you won't have to burn the
DVDs and it'll be a lot quicker, but I couldn't figure that out.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928634/