Flooring Tile - ceramic over vinyl

I'm sure you guys get tired of this question and I do realize that the vinyl needs to come up but here's my dilema. I have a 400 sqft living/dining room that I'd like to put ceramic in. The existing floor is vinyl that is glued over a painted and sealed concrete foundation. It seems virtually impossible to get everything off and down to a suitable substrate. Some say with the right prep (sanding or scarifying) and high quality modified thinset that it would work. My question is what should we do. We want to do it ourselves and we have lots of remodeling experience. Is ceramic tile not possible for this room? If we did get the vinyl up what do we do about the glue and paint underneath? Thank you for you time and advice.

Sounds like you already did your home work and you know what to do, but for some reason you are looking for an easy way out. If you are looking for an installation that will last a long time, the vinyl, and paint and sealer have to go. There is no easy way out here, except maybe another vinyl floor. Sorry.

Yeah. You're right. I was hoping someone would say "use this such and such" and then it would work. Easy way out would have been good! But now I'm wondering what can I use to get the sealer and paint up? Will a floor sander take that up? We might just have to save the ceramic for the bathrooms and take the easy road of laminate. Thanks for replying.