Here’s the scenario:

You have your Windows 7 machine and decided to try out Linux, because everyone says it’s cool, so you go download the latest <insert distribution of choice> ISO, burn your CD and install it on your machine.

The installation went great and, thanks to Grub bootloader, every time your machine booted it gave you an option of booting into Windows 7 or Linux, if you don’t press anything it boots directly in to linux.. nice!

A few months down the road you found yourself going into Linux less and less and found it a hassle to have to select Windows every time. Now you just don’t even want Linux anymore and want your full drive dedicated to Windows 7 again.. well, here’s how to do it.

What you’ll need:

• Your Windows 7 install / recovery disc
• A computer that can boot from a disc – if your machine can’t do this, chances are you don’t have Windows 7 on it anyway.

Steps to remove the bootloader and boot directly into Windows:

1. Put the CD in your computer and select to boot from it when prompted.
2. Soon you will be presented with the initial setup screen, more often than not you can keep the defaults and push ‘Next’.
   

   Initial Screen

3. On the next screen (shown below) do not click on the ‘Install Now’ button, click on the ‘Repair your computer’ button in the lower left of the screen:
   

   Repair your computer

4. At this point the installer will look for (and hopefully find) your installation of Windows 7. Select the correct installation and click ‘Next’.
   

   Select the installation

5. The next window that comes up is the ‘System Recover Options’ screen. This screen lists all the tools on the disc that can help you recover from various errors, the one we’re concerned with is ‘Command Prompt’.
   

   Recovery Options

6. When the command prompt opens, enter the following: bootrec.exe /FixMbr
   Hopefully you will see something similar to the screen shot below:
   

   Bootrec.exe

7. Assuming everything went as planed, just close the command prompt, select to reboot the machine and pop out the disc. Part one done.

Now you can boot directly into Windows 7, but chances you’ll want to see how to reclaim your hard drive space for Windows 7.