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How to acquire XP today?

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by starryknight

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I need to buy my daughter a notebook for studies at Wittenberg university, however, I (and she) want the XP OS, not Vista, because being a college freshman is tough enough without crappy OS troubles. Are any notebooks still selling with XP installed? If I have to separately buy XP, is it difficult to strip out Vista to the extent that it won't leave remnants behind for later troubles? (This option makes me angry because of the expense I'd be "forced" into - but I guess it's an option.) Can I even buy XP through normal channels anymore?

HP (her notebook of choice)has one inexpensive machine they still sell with XP, but she wants a better machine than that. Any good alternatives to getting her a good notebook and XP?

3 replies

by dumphrey

Dell is offering "Downgrade" rights to XP from Vista.
With Vista business, it costs $99 to "downgrade" to XP pro. This means the computer comes with XP pro installed, and a vista COA on the case. The COA will work to install Vista business upgrade (disk provided) or XP pro (disk provided).
I know the option is available on their latitude and vostro lines of laptops. You may have to look around and see which models.
I would be very surprised if HP and IBM are not doing something similar.
This way you get legal XP, and can upgrade to Vista at anytime for no extra charge (well, okay, there is a charge, but it was paid upfront).
Dell will be offering this service until 2010.
But it is only available with Vista Business or Ultimate.

by thechas

One source that you might consider for a XP notebook is:

http://www.buyxg.com/

They actually give you a wide choice of operating systems. They are one of the few places you can buy a new notebook with no OS installed.

Dell also offers some notebooks with XP.

As far as changing from Vista to XP, the first thing to check is can you get XP drivers for all of the hardware.

Next, since you cannot uninstall Vista, I recommend that you buy a new hard drive for the system and keep the original Vista drive intact. That way, should you ever want to use Vista, it will be easy to switch back.

Your only other real option is to format the hard drive and start over fresh with XP.

Chas

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