Need help to replace Vista with XP! (Vanity)

Vanity ^ | Self

[cornfedcowboy]

I need help switching my vista back to XP on my laptop. No network is invloved, this is my personal pc. Vista will not work with several of my programs for outside applications(I have checked for Vista compatibility and it will be a long while). I have an XP Pro CD. Help me please. Thanks in advance.

[cornfedcowboy]

help

[Billthedrill]

A couple of pertinent questions - do you have anything on the existing hard drive that you cannot do without? A complete data backup is probably in order before you proceed. Do you have any peripherals that XP's "native" installation media won't have drivers for? Printers, scanners, etc, etc - if they came with drivers on disk you'll need to locate those disks. No network means you won't be downloading them from the internet (on that box, at least.)

Basically you'll need to slick your hard drive and treat XP as a "new" installation. FReepmail me if you don't know precisely how to do that. Do NOT attempt an "upgrade" since that won't work anyway. Slick the drive and start over.

[cornfedcowboy]

No peripheralsfor me to worry about. I will back up data soon. Thanks

[JamesP81]

The way to deal with this is to backup all data that you need (documents, email, music, and the like). Once that’s done, format the hard drive and install XP from scratch. Installing an OS over an old one never works well, and should not be done.

[ASH71]

you could also Dual boot or use Virtual PC with XP install thereby using both OS’s

[edcoil]

You should be able to go to the control panel, add and remove programs, scroll down to XP upgrade, click removal.

That should do it.

[cornfedcowboy]

I now just realized that my XP Pro install CD is the upgrade version and not the full version. It never ends does it?

[goldstategop]

Try PCLinuxOS. Its a nifty Linux distro - easy to set up and run. The cool thing about it is you can run the entire OS from your CD so you can check out whether your hardware supports it. Try doing that with Vista. Cost? FREE!

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[ShadowAce]

While I am not personally a Windows expert, there are some on this list....

[TChris]

I now just realized that my XP Pro install CD is the upgrade version and not the full version. It never ends does it?

Did you use it previously for an upgrade? If so, you should have an old Windows 98, Me, NT 4, or 2000 CD. When you install XP Pro, it will want to see one of those CDs during the process.

Boot to your XP CD. It will ask you to insert your qualifying previous Windows CD (98, Me, etc.) to verify that you upgraded. During the process, it will ask you which partition to install on. It will see that there is already a version of Windows on the disk, and that's fine. You'll install to that partition anyway, acknowledging the warnings. Do not delete the partition, just install to it and overwrite the version of Windows (Vista) that it sees is already there.

You do not need to reformat your hard drive! Your data can sit there happily as you downgrade back to XP. You'll just have to reinstall most applications (back to the same folder where they were installed before) to make them work again after XP is reinstalled.

Go through the install process and it will go back to XP. You'll need to reinstall hardware drivers (video, sound, network, modem, etc.) and applications, but your data files should be right where you left them on the hard drive.

Hope that helps. :-)

[TChris]

Also... Google "downgrade vista xp"

There's a bunch of good info out there.