Installing XP on a Vista machine

coolbeans

Hey all,

I'm wondering if there is anything I need to be aware of if I remove Vista from my laptop and replace it with XP Pro. I really hate Vista and just want rid of as soon as possible. My machine is a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo with 4GB ram, a Core 2 Duo processor and a 320GB HD.
I'm a Luddite when it comes to big installations so I'll be getting someone else to do the dirty work. Oh yeah, I'm not interested in Windows 7 as I'll undoubtedly have software compatibility issues which I will not have the time, patience or interest in resolving.

Cordially,
Coolbeans.

Bob_Harris

coolbeans wrote: »

Hey all,

I'm wondering if there is anything I need to be aware of if I remove Vista from my laptop and replace it with XP Pro. I really hate Vista and just want rid of as soon as possible. My machine is a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo with 4GB ram, a Core 2 Duo processor and a 320GB HD.
I'm a Luddite when it comes to big installations so I'll be getting someone else to do the dirty work. Oh yeah, I'm not interested in Windows 7 as I'll undoubtedly have software compatibility issues which I will not have the time, patience or interest in resolving.

Cordially,
Coolbeans.

Windows 7, 32bit, is pretty solid when it comes to compatibility etc.

But anyway, to point out the obvious you should back up all important data as XP will wipe the disk / partition, and make sure there are XP drivers available for your laptops hardware and download these before the install.

coolbeans

thanks Bob. Re the drivers; how many drivers do I typically need and how do I know if I have them all?

Bob_Harris

Go to the Fujitsu website and enter in the model number of your laptop. It should display all available drivers for your laptop.

Sometimes the XP drivers may be hidden. E.G. My Acer came with Vista install but there were no XP drivers listed on their website. They did however have all the XP drivers for my laptop on an FTP server which I found through google.

MunsterCycling

W7 has an XP compatible mode that will run most XP saoftware straight away and 99% of others with very little work, that said the advice above is sound

yoyo

No point in purchasing a 10 year old os tbh, and if its a new laptop will more than likely not have xp drivers to add further complications, as has been said, the pro versions of Windows 7 have a "XP Mode" if you have software compatability issiues, any decent software companies will have made their software Vista/7 compatible by now anyway

Nick

Anti

in my lats job i was given a fujitsu laptop wth vista, i immediatly put xp on it thinking there must be xp drivers, but there were none at all

upgrading to win7 will probably be your best bet, as said above it is compatible with pretty much everything, and its supprisingly fast too, especially compared to vista.

Ghost Train

Well i haven't found windows 7 all that great after a few months with it I will probably go back to xp when i get time. With 4gb of ram you might find it better though

yoyo

Ghost Train wrote: »

Well i haven't found windows 7 all that great after a few months with it I will probably go back to xp when i get time. With 4gb of ram you might find it better though

Even windows 7 runs well on older hardware, if you tryed a beta or RC version it may be worthwhile trying the retail one when it comes out, Windows 7 runs much faster on my laptop than xp (Standard Dual core, 1 gig ram, intel gma graphics etc), its also compatible with all my software I need, so that hasnt been a issiue,

Nick

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I'm using Windows 7 at present on my desktop and on my laptop and the results are very impressive (Previously I was using XP/Ubuntu on the laptop and Vista on the Desktop). I hated Vista but Windows 7 is si much better it's hard to believe the are products from the same company. Don't be fooled by the look and feel of Windows 7 and think it looks the similar as Vista ... they're completely different animals.

I'm not a miscrsoft fanboy - but so far I'm very happy with Windows 7.

Ghost Train

yoyo wrote: »

Even windows 7 runs well on older hardware, if you tryed a beta or RC version it may be worthwhile trying the retail one when it comes out, Windows 7 runs much faster on my laptop than xp (Standard Dual core, 1 gig ram, intel gma graphics etc), its also compatible with all my software I need, so that hasnt been a issiue,

Nick

It's not an old laptop, it's a dual core 1gb ram intel graphics. It's not the beta version of win 7. It works ok but does slow up with a few things running, even the keyboard can get a bit behind sometimes. I work in IT so use a lot of different computers, just a few things bug me, a certain ammount of it might be the particular hardware, but personaly might hold off for the moment

Anti

Well anything with 1gb of ram on it is going to be slow to be honest.

Yellowblackbird

In vista make a list of all the devices you have. Use belarc advisor and cpu z to make sure you don't miss anything. Check if xp drivers available, from manufacturers websites, google, drivers sites etc. Xp will pick up most of the stuff anyway. Be careful if its a sata hard drive as you will have to add sata controller driver to xp install disk before using it. slipstream service pack 3 while your at it.
Your laptop will work much faster as 1gb ram is not eneugh for vista

monkeypants

nLite http://www.nliteos.com/ is a great program for slipstreaming.

As Yellowblackbird says, try and get all the drivers ready beforehand. A quick look at Device Manager will identify most of it. You'll need a chipset driver, graphics, sound, network (both wired and wireless). If you have SATA drives, then SATA drivers are a must before you even begin. A regular XP disk won't even recognise the existence of SATA disks and the installation will fail before it begins.