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I've reinstalled Windows 7 and I now how 2 windows 7 options to choose from when booting the computer. Both options seem to load the same copy of windows 7.

Why has this happened, and how to I get rid of one of the options?

I did a full reinstall, which I assume was supposed to get rid of the old version completely and stick it into the windows.old folder?

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  • 1
    You didn't format your hdd before you reinstalled Windows 7.
    – Ramhound
    Aug 29, 2013 at 11:02
  • +1 You likely left your original partition on the drive and installed a second one.
    – root
    Jul 7, 2014 at 17:06

3 Answers 3

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Windows uses multiple partitions - one contains the boot-loader. It looks like you did not erase the partitions. For a complete clean install you have to delete all existing partitions.

In such a case the old boot-loader entries remain as you have noticed.

Windows 7 has command-line tool for editing this boot menu. But usually one of the free GUI based alternatives are easier to use:

  • EasyBCD
  • Visual BCD Editor
  • Advanced Visual BCD Editor

using this tools you can view, compare and edit the entries as well as remove the one that is no longer needed.

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The boot.ini file which can be found by doing the following:

Run>Msconfig>Boot tab - will show you the 2 installations. On my PC it shows the following text:

"Windows 7 Professional (C:\Windows) : Current OS; Default OS"

What I assume you have done is you let Windows make the ~100MB System Partition + move the old data to the Windows.old folder , when doing this (sometimes it has happened when making a clone of a faulty drive) I have found the end result is sometimes the issue you are having.

To correct it, please post a ScreenShot / link to a screenshot of your "Boot" tab under Msconfig, and I can advise you from there on which one to delete (but they both work so they might be exact copies of each other).

ZK

EDIT: What I do to avoid this is when installing Windows, to Delete ALL partitions, then click Next, Windows will then use the free space as 1 single partition. Downside is you will need to clone the drive/copy the data off before hand and copy it back, which isnt effective, from a time POV.

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Go into System Configuration by typing msconfig at the run area. Go into Boot and delete the second boot option. Restart and the problem should be gone.

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