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medgirl2001

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 11, 2009
217
3
USA
For reasons which I don't want to get into here, I need to downgrade the copy of Windows 7 on my BootCamp partition to XP. I have the disks for both. I don't have any problem just zapping the BootCamp partition and starting fresh.

My question is, what is the best/fastest way to go about this? I'm not sure how it's best to get rid of a BootCamp installation. What's the best way to delete Windows 7 and get things started to install with XP?
 
For reasons which I don't want to get into here, I need to downgrade the copy of Windows 7 on my BootCamp partition to XP. I have the disks for both. I don't have any problem just zapping the BootCamp partition and starting fresh.

My question is, what is the best/fastest way to go about this? I'm not sure how it's best to get rid of a BootCamp installation. What's the best way to delete Windows 7 and get things started to install with XP?

Just reformat the partition with the XP installer during the install. (like the usual FAT32 -> NTFS step.)

B
 
Just reformat the partition with the XP installer during the install. (like the usual FAT32 -> NTFS step.)

B

Ok, thanks. It was a long time ago when I did all this initially. Can I change the size of the BootCamp partition at that point as well? And with Windows XP, should I still use NTFS? Or change back to FAT32?
 
Ok, thanks. It was a long time ago when I did all this initially. Can I change the size of the BootCamp partition at that point as well? And with Windows XP, should I still use NTFS? Or change back to FAT32?

Always NTFS.

If you want to resize the BC partition, the easiest way is to use Boot Camp Assistant to remove the W7 partition and start again.

B
 
I am on Mavericks and I want to downgrade from Windows 7 to XP. Any workaround possible to do it? Since OS 10.7 it seems to be no longer possible to install WinXP directly with Bootcamp.
 
I am on Mavericks and I want to downgrade from Windows 7 to XP. Any workaround possible to do it? Since OS 10.7 it seems to be no longer possible to install WinXP directly with Bootcamp.

You would need to use Boot Camp Assistant in OS X to create the appropriate partition setup. You would then download the appropriate software from Apple and put it on a USB drive. Install XP as usual then you can load the software off of the USB drive. Keep in mind that Macs made in the past couple of years do not support Windows XP and you will be limited to a supported operating system.
 
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