But people who frequently install Vista into an additional partition still need some help when they're removing Vista from a partition. The problem is the BCD's boot directory on the system drive. It's protected by aggressive file and folder permissions that prevent it from being stripped of security protections. Deleting this folder can be a distinct problem. If you understand Vista's file permissions, there is an involved way to "take ownership" of Vista's boot folder and then delete it. VistaBootPro performed this magic in earlier versions, but that functionality is missing beginning with its 3.1 version.

TIP: But there is an easy way to solve the problem. On the Vista install DVD there's a folder called Boot containing a file called bootsect.exe. Using Command Prompt, navigate to that directory and type this command for detailed information about how to use this tool:

bootsect /help

In tests performed with Windows XP (installed on drive C:) and Windows Vista, this command loosened the file permissions on the BCD boot folder:

bootsect /nt52 c: