Uninstalling XP - Help Needed

[Basic]

I finally had it with XP and decided to uninstall it and revert to 98SE WITHOUT formatting. It has to be possible right? So off I go to the MS site and almost right away find what I'm looking for except.. it doesn't work. I get an error message that isn't addressed so I google it and after 2 hours have come up with SFA. Since I don't have a burner I can't back up alot of these huge apps I don't have the discs for....
Anyway to the point when I try and run osuninst.exe I get an error message about missing registry entries. I can't manual uninstall because of this and the automatic uninstall option is totally missing, Any ideas on how I can get rid of XP without formatting or having to partion/dual boot?

 

[Fred]

I don't think you can go back without formatting or making it a dual boot system.
Eventually there will be no support for win98 anyway so the easiest thing would be to persevere with XP.

 

[Paul0]

Did you come across this?
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314052

If your drive is NTFS , there's some mucking around to be done, as Win98 doesn't know what that is.

I believe Partition Magic can create & convert partitions without losing data - scary process if you can't afford any stuff ups though.

 

[jim boy]

Originally posted by Basic
I finally had it with XP and decided to uninstall it and revert to 98SE WITHOUT formatting. It has to be possible right? So off I go to the MS site and almost right away find what I'm looking for except.. it doesn't work. I get an error message that isn't addressed so I google it and after 2 hours have come up with SFA. Since I don't have a burner I can't back up alot of these huge apps I don't have the discs for....
Anyway to the point when I try and run osuninst.exe I get an error message about missing registry entries. I can't manual uninstall because of this and the automatic uninstall option is totally missing, Any ideas on how I can get rid of XP without formatting or having to partion/dual boot?

You can't really go backwards properly. If you have NTFS you can't go backwards at all. Really the only way is to turn the disk or partition into a non system partition (eg delete rename key system folders such as Windows, Program Files and Documents and Settings) and run the system setup of whatever OS you want to go to. Very messy.

 

[Seb]

Get another HDD, transfer all the files on your primary master and format.

It's the only way.


Oh... and before you delve back into 98se, try win2k, the best operating system around

 

[Zeke]

Buy a Mac.

 

[Seb]

lol.

 

[Mr Q]

If your hard drive is running NTFS you can't go back. If its running FAT32 you can, as both Windows 98 and XP can read FAT32. However I would say that trying to go back to an earlier operating system without reformatting your disk is at best unpredictable, and I would strongly recommend that you rebuild the machine from scratch. Not because it won't work, but because you get a much cleaner and more reliable system that way.

If you think you are likely to change the OS again I would recommend that you partition your disk into two or more parts and store your data on a partition that you do not use for the OS or any applications. This means when you reformat the disk to install a new OS you do not have to back up all your data first.

Finally I would say if you have a choice between XP and 98 that unless your machine is really old and XP is just too slow to use or you are trying to run old legacy games that require DOS you would be better running XP as it will be a much more stable OS. If its not, then you should reinstall it, but ensure you do it with all the latest device drivers for your machine.

 

[Basic]

Nah it's been decided that I'll be going back to 98. I have install disks for both XP and 98 so if I need to I can reinstall XP at some point. Besides that I was up until about 3am trying to figure this crap out and it's really annoying. The version of XP I have probably since it's a burnt one comes from a fresh install with some things missing from the registry. I found a document on the windows site about how to repair it but it didn't work, Probably because the registry had problems in the first place. So I decided to give up on that and think about formatting it and just using the recovery disk to put 98 on it.
I am using FAT32 now so there shouldn't really be any problems, I made sure it was FAT32 so that if I wanted to I could go back to 98 without formatting, laughable huh.
Anyway those old games will soon be played again!