Downgrading from vista to xp and cost

Axwell

Hi folks,

I have a friend who wants me to format his machine and install Windows Xp on it as vista is giving him loads of problems. Is there any reduction in cost in getting a licence for Xp considering he already has a machine with Vista or does he have to fork out the full price for xp aswell?

astrofool

Full price, unless he has Vista Business, which is entitled to a downgrade to XP. Cheapest way is to buy it OEM from someone like www.komplett.ie

Is it an old machine he's using? What type of problems are occurring? Most early problems with Vista have been fixed (mostly driver updates).

Axwell

Not sure how old it is yet as i havent got my hands on it but i think hes just not too fond of vista anyways and wants to go back to using XP but doesnt have a copy of it lying around on an old machine that we could transfer the product key over from. I'll just suggest he gets an OEM version and go from there.

yoyo

Axwell wrote: »

Not sure how old it is yet as i havent got my hands on it but i think hes just not too fond of vista anyways and wants to go back to using XP but doesnt have a copy of it lying around on an old machine that we could transfer the product key over from. I'll just suggest he gets an OEM version and go from there.

Just remember its not that straightforward downgrading to XP in some cases, make sure you have a Vista re-install disc incase things dont work, you'll also probably need to use N Lite to slipstream SATA drivers into XPs install disc and reinstall from that (XP has poor support for newer SATA chipsets), these drivers can be found on the manufacturers website in most cases, also make sure you find windows xp compatable drivers such as wireless, network, sound, video, etc before proceeding, unless there is really a huge issiue I wouldnt bother tbh, a ram upgrade would be a cheaper solution these days if the systems going too slow, as its all going to be vista support from now on anyways (higher priority)

Nick

lucernarian

astrofool wrote: »

Full price, unless he has Vista Business, which is entitled to a downgrade to XP. Cheapest way is to buy it OEM from someone like www.komplett.ie

Is it an old machine he's using? What type of problems are occurring? Most early problems with Vista have been fixed (mostly driver updates).

From what I've seen and was told in the other thread, one might actually need an unused XP Pro CD and product key for any downgrade.

Overheal

TBH there is no longer anything I have found that XP can do that Vista cant. Even game performance issues can be solved with a quick fix: You can juice an extra few fps by shutting down the explorer.exe process while you play. In fact the only reason still permeating to downgrade is Word of Mouth from people whom many of which will admit have never even touched Vista: their 'experience' usually comes from Vista's poor reputation in its Maiden Year.

Also if you're talking about a laptop thats a whole new set of problems. Newer hardware frequently doesnt even have XP drivers available.

Personally I find Vista just fine. It does everything I ask of it and actually crashes far far less than XP did. Even the Security Pop-up can be disabled by the way, but personally I like having it there: its for keeping your machine safe and secure.

kaizersoze

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

From what I've seen and was told in the other thread, one might actually need an unused XP Pro CD and product key for any downgrade.

To downgrade from Vista Business, all you need is the XP Pro CD.
You use the Vista licence key to install. It will fail activation but a phonecall sorts that out.