There are tons of articles out there that go to great length trying to remove the XP mode for one reason or another. Because of the permissions and the fact that the machine might be in use people start writing all these scripts etc to remove the XP mode from the machine.

I really don’t want to embaress those “experts” but I have found a much easier way of fully remove XP mode.

Here are the steps:

1. In Windows go to the start menu and click on Virtual PC. Do NOT click on Virtual XP Mode.
2. Remove Virtual PC by going into “Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Programs and Features”
3. Click on “Turn Windows features on or Off
4. Uncheck “Windows Virtual PC
5. Click OK.
6. It will ask you to restart your machine. Don’t do it.
7. You should now be able to remove the XP Mode VHD files.
8. They are located: C:\Users\**user**\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines
9. Restart Machine

Note – replace **user** with your actual USERNAME directory. In my case it is: C:\Users\Jared\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines

Bingo. It’s that easy.