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Windows XP vs Windows Vista

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Here’s the scenario: If you bought Windows XP SP2 recently to install on your old computer, but your computer bit the dust; so you decided to go buy a new computer that has Windows Vista installed already (because you can’t option out of not having it on there).
Here’s the question: Would you be able to install Windows XP onto a system already running Windows Vista, and would you want to do this??? Let me know what you think!!

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Clarifications

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

Clarifications

Yes and No

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

You can certainly install it and if you dont much like vista or you have Pro SP2 compared to something like Home Basic then I could see the want to upgrade. However the big issue might be drivers for XP. Depending on the internal components and the manufacturer there may not be XP drivers for the machine.

agree

In reply to Yes and No

My son bought a laptop with vista installed & i formatted his hdd, loaded XPSP2 & was lucky to find all the drivers at HP. Spent a few hrs but i accomplished the project.

So just how do I “upgrade” from Windows Vista to XP

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

To answer your question with another, I just bought a Dell Latitude D520 with WinVista Ultimate, and I want to get rid of this ponderous, crash-happy OS. I’ve got an old laptop that had XP Home edition on it. That was good enough for me. How do I “upgrade” from Vista Ultimate to XP Home Edition?

drivers first

In reply to So just how do I “upgrade” from Windows Vista to XP

First download all the drivers for your laptop to use with XP on a cd. Prob the mfg has a driver section for this. Then format with Xp & reinstall. Or if you have a Win 98 floppy use fdisk. Then install XP.

Easy as 1, 2, 3 ….

In reply to So just how do I “upgrade” from Windows Vista to XP

As long as you have the XP disc and drivers etc this is not a problem. If you dont have the XP disc you’ll need to purchase it. If this is the case get XP Pro instead of Home.
You need to change the Boot sequence in BIOS so that it boots from the cd first and not the hard drive.
Once this is done, insert the disc and follow the steps on screen.
If your dell came with heaps of memory and a fairly large HDD, you can have both Vista and XP installed on your system.
You’re pretty lucky to have bought a system with Vista Ultimate, most systems are selling with either Vista Home Basic(the name ‘basic’ says it all) or Home Premium.

Sometimes can’t be done

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

I recently took a client’s new HP “Slimline” and the particular machine in question had no drivers available other than Vista. Be sure that you can find the drivers first.

Keep both for a while

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

If you install Vista after XP, you get the Vista boot loader, primitive but usable. In XP, you need to use the XP boot loader to choose which OS you want.

I have one machine with Vista and XP. The purpose was to test Vista while maintaining the ability to use XP for known tasks.

One interesting trick is to go into Vista, and when it gripes about not having drivers, point it at the XP drive or partition. Somehow Vista seemed satisfied with the XP drivers, even though they supposedly didn’t exist.

It’s probably best to dual boot for a while until drivers and stability issues are resolved. Lots of Vista drivers are appearing, and like I said, you can “cheat” because Vista will grudgingly accept XP drivers if they’re already installed and running the device.

YES…..YES……YES…….

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

You will definately be able to do it, using dual boot option makes it pretty easy to use both XP & Vista;
BUT doing this will most certainly compromise Tech Support from the PC Manufacturer, which you might avail now or in the near future.
If you are going to do it anyway then there is a pre-requste; the Driver CD pack should be available, if you dont have one then do request it from your PC Manufacturer. They’ll provide it to you free of cost. The same goes for OS Installation Disks.

Absolutely!

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

Yes, you can have more than one OS on your computer providing you have enough space on your hard drive and a decent amount of memory. You need to ask yourself whether you want to have both or whether you want just XP and not vista. If you decide to just have XP but later on want to change to vista you can always install Vista anyway, (presumably your new system came with a vista recovery disk). When it comes to running vista I would suggest you have at least 2-4 Gb RAM, not the measly 512mb ram some systems are selling.
Personally, I prefer to use XP. Haven’t heard great things about vista anyway!
Regards,

New Partition – New OS

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

Just create a new partition on the new hard drive using something like Partition Magic. Run the XP disc and you can then tell it where to load Windows XP. Edit the boot.ini file to give you the choice of OS at bootup.

No way can you install XP with Vista on your system, it will crash badly.

In reply to Windows XP vs Windows Vista

No way can you install XP with Vista on your system, it will crash badly. Vista has proven to be incompatible with XP of any type.

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