Windows Vista Downgrade help

[purplebudz]

my brother has windows vista on his computer, but i don't know exactly what brand because some of it is custom. any ways he wants to downgrade from vista to xp by inserting it in the cd drive. then change boot to boot from cd. then we found out that vista will not let u downgrade to a lower version becuz it is a peace of *censored*. then we read that we could reformat the whole hardrive then begin again to boot from the cd. this is were we are stuck at. any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ChrisXPPro]

I was fortunate as my HP came with a recovery disk which also gave me an option to downgrade ... and so it made formatting easy - then applied XP after.

You'll need to reformat and wipe that horrible Vista - but I think you'll need some other form of boot CD - one with suitable tools to allow you to this.  Right now can't think of what to suggest but probably one of the gurus will step up and help on this.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Not 100% here but you should be able to boot from the XP CD and format the drive from there.

[Bromide]

As long as you have Vista it would be a shame to throw it away. Here's a link to a very good article about how to dual-boot XP and Vista. Normally you can't add an older OS to a newer one, but this shows how.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/install-windows-xp-on-your-pre-installed-windows-vista-computer/

I felt the same way you do when I got my new laptop and wanted to dump Vista and install XP. I spent days trying to find XP hardware drivers when I found out HP didn't provide them for my machine. I installed XP on a second hard drive and ran it for a while, but it never worked well. So every now and then I put the original hard drive back in and poked around on Vista, gradually getting used to it.

Try dual-booting so you can have both. Maybe you will switch later. The same site linked about has several articles about how to tame Vista so it doesn't make you so angry. Good luck.

[h0w]

As long as you have Vista it would be a shame to throw it away. Here's a link to a very good article about how to dual-boot XP and Vista. Normally you can't add an older OS to a newer one, but this shows how.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/install-windows-xp-on-your-pre-installed-windows-vista-computer/

I felt the same way you do when I got my new laptop and wanted to dump Vista and install XP. I spent days trying to find XP hardware drivers when I found out HP didn't provide them for my machine. I installed XP on a second hard drive and ran it for a while, but it never worked well. So every now and then I put the original hard drive back in and poked around on Vista, gradually getting used to it.

Try dual-booting so you can have both. Maybe you will switch later. The same site linked about has several articles about how to tame Vista so it doesn't make you so angry. Good luck.

IMO vista isnt worth the extra space on the HD. wait for windows 7.0!

[chad]

I formatted my new laptop that came with Vista, but before, in the BIOS I disabled SATA and then Windows XP ran 100% fine first go. Boot from CD needs to be selected in BIOS too if you have Win Xp cd. The whole thing took less than an hour... although it took me a WEEK to discover I needed to disable SATA.

What is it with Vista? It's meant to be great, but no-one likes it... I'm just annoyed each time I have to select something it takes me four mouse clicks where XP took one, if any.

[soybean]

I've had a Notebook PC with Vista for about a year now.  While I agree that getting into certain parts of Windows, such as various features managed via Control Panel, take longer to get to because there are more screens to go through, I certainly would not buy Windows XP to install on a computer that already has Vista on it.  Once you get used to it, I think you'll find using Vista is not much different from using XP when it comes to actually getting work done.  For example, with both XP and Vista, I have the Quick Launch toolbar enabled and put icons to frequently used programs on it.

[chad]

I'm curious, although the numerous posts on PC boards around the Net tell me I am in the majority... a lot of people don't really like Vista.

Is there a way to make it faster, i.e. less steps to get somewhere? and the look... ?

is there a message board around discussing the pros and cons of Vista?

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

is there a message board around discussing the pros and cons of Vista?

That is a very good idea!  What not start one?

 

[ChrisXPPro]

and the look... ?

As far as appearance goes - I did before I ditched it - get set up pretty much as I wanted.  Being an old traditionalist I run my system still as the classic appearance ...... what I see now is not greatly different from what I saw back in '95 days.

By making up your own theme and saving it - introducing classic everywhere possible, you can ''turn back the clock'' quite successfully. 

As for the numbers of steps - didn't dig deep enough for long enough but I am sure some short cuts are there.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Being an old traditionalist I run my system still as the classic appearance ...... what I see now is not greatly different from what I saw back in '95 days.

XP's Windows Classic or what?

[chad]

and the look... ?

As for the numbers of steps - didn't dig deep enough for long enough but I am sure some short cuts are there.

So you saw it and ditched it?

Theres also the other issues... it takes up twice as much space, twice as much memory... and seems to be slower. Security?? I have not had a single issue with XP and Symantec in three years.

And what exactly was wrong with XP...? Except MS have now developed Anti Piracy on Vista and want us all to switch. I bet bugs will suddenly creep in with XP updates so we all go Vista! (oohh conspiracy!)

[ChrisXPPro]

XP's Windows Classic or what?

Yes - Classic that in effect keeps pretty much the appearance of old 95 ... as well as Win2k.  Of course the old 95 look had no two color graduation for title bars but overall the look and feel has been maintained to pretty much the old look. 

I noticed within Vista that there seemed pretty much the same means of doing this as I do in XP.

[SuperDave]

Try this. Lots of tips for Vista
http://itsvista.com/topic/commands/

[patio]

Win2K Rules ! !