Downsizing from Vista to XP

[DubTrub]

My rather elderly parents have had installed two new laptops with wireless internet and all the bells & whistles. It all works surprisingly well, except that neither machine will connect with the "networked" Lexmark printer.

But they just cannot get on with Vista, with which these two machines came installed.

Can they "downgrade" back to XP, with which they are quite familiar (without affecting the laptop warranty), or do they have to put up with what new machines come with?

Help appreciated.

Rob

[Keef]

The software shouldn't affect the warranty.

It may be worth asking the shop if they'll do the job for you. If the laptops are new, they may...

[Saab Dastard]

According to MS, only Vista "Business" and "Ultimate" versions are included in the downgrade license program. If you have either of these, you have the right to downgrade to XP Pro. Provided you have access to an XP CD and a product key. You can then activate it by contacting MS for your activation key.

So if you have any other version of Vista, the only way to get XP is to buy a copy. Which you can no longer buy new - only via ebay or some other 2nd hand source.

Bear in mind that some new PCs may have components that have no XP drivers supplied by the PC manfr.

It may be simpler to configure Vista as close to XP as possible and learn to live with the s0dding thing!

SD

[Keef]

You can still buy a new PC with XP Pro - a friend of mine did, a couple of weeks ago.
I forgot to tell her to insist on Office 2003 (different problem, now down to me to sort!)

There are plenty of "new" copies of XP Pro on eBay, if all else fails.

[Background Noise]

Why is everyone so keen on XP Pro rather than XP Home? Both XPs still appear to be for sale new in many places other than ebay.

[Parapunter]

Whoa! Have you checked out Lexmark for a new driver?!! Is it only me who thinks this is like selling a car in order to buy a horse and cart because you find the seat belt fiddly??!

Worth a look at least, surely.

[ZFT]

For XP you could install a ‘dirty’ copy. When it fails the validation check take advantage of Microsoft’s Genuine Advantage programs to legitimise it.

[Saab Dastard]

Why is everyone so keen on XP Pro rather than XP Home?

No-one is*.

XP Pro (not Home) is the MS "downgrade" path from the only 2 qualifying versions of Vista.

Keef simply related that he had seen it for sale, both with a new PC and on ebay.

Parapunter, it's not the printer that is the reason they want to downgrade!

But they just cannot get on with Vista

is the reason!

SD

* But it is actually better (less crippled).

[Parapunter]

Mebbe's I should offer to buy up copies of Vista. 10 sheets a pop. I seem to be the only ppruner who likes it!

[Keef]

I think the "Horse and cart" analogy is a good one. The cart is in front of the horse.

About 75% of the people I've talked to who've tried Vista think it's a solution looking for a problem, and hate it. The other 25% like it.

I suspect that when M$ manage to produce SP1 and SP2, it will then be quite good.

Meanwhile, having spent quite a bit of time with a couple of friends who bought new computers with it, it's not coming anywhere near mine!

[Russell Gulch]

Have you checked out Lexmark for a new driver Funnily enough I have, and there are no Vista drivers for 4-year-old printers.
Ironically, PCworld :ugh: have been selling brand new printers and guess what...they don't work with Vista.

[ORAC]

So if you have any other version of Vista, the only way to get XP is to buy a copy. Which you can no longer buy new - only via ebay or some other 2nd hand source. Lots of companies still selling it. e.g.

SnutUK (http://www.snutuk.co.uk/index.php?cPath=9_23&osCsid=60f3690d2575d9a3ad35b64653497819) PowerPC (http://www.powerc.com/ps/s1=915A/1/629-1193833092-7818//)

[Mac the Knife]

"Bear in mind that some new PCs may have components that have no XP drivers supplied by the PC manfr."

Given the generally less-than-enthusiastic response to Vista I'd be surprised unless the new mobo has some Vista only feature (also unlikely). More DRM maybe :E:uhoh::*

Note that MS already has Vista's successor "Vienna" (or "7") in the pipeline for 2009. Gawd know what that is going to be like. If Vista is anything to judge by it'll occupy 40GB of disk space, demand 4GB of memory and a quad core CPU - oh, and after all that it'll take an hour to boot.

By the time Vienna is out some of the Linuxes (and WINE) will be fully it's equal and there'll be no reason to consider further expensive Microsoft serfdom.

Mac

[Gonzo]

I have actually found Vista to be the quickest 'boot-up' of all the Windows versions. Power on to desktop is about 12 seconds. Waaaay faster that XP on the same machine.

[parabellum]

Absolutely correct Gonzo but once it has booted up what can you f:mad:ng do with it!?:(

[Gonzo]

Everything I want/need to, and not crashed in four months since I installed it. All my peripherals work too.

[Parapunter]

And me! Faultless operating system. I find that as with all MS os's, a little tinkering is usually required & that is the great weakness of MS, their products rarely work as advertised out of the box, which is really not on, but with a little reading, patience & application, it's straightforward to get the whole thing humming.

Tweaking has driven down the resource intensity too. For example, the much trumpeted advanced indexing is really quite useless unless you're hoarding enormous amounts of data. Solution? switch it off.

[Saab Dastard]

Gonzo & parapunter,

Please can you indicate which version of Vista you are running?

It is good to hear of some people who are NOT having problems with Vista!

SD

[Gonzo]

I'm running Vista Home Premium OEM with all updates patched, on a Core2Duo E6600, 2GB RAM, 320MB Nvidia 6600GTS graphics with a desktop resolution of 2560x1024 (two monitor setup), Aero interface turned on.

I've not had to tinker at all. :}

[Parapunter]

Vista HP OEM too. Mine's slightly hacked as indicated elsewhere...
I'm running it on an intel core duo E440 cpu, an Asus p5l-vm1394 mobo, 2 gig ddr ram, two Western digital caviar HDD's, all in about 850 gigs storage, an Nvidia 8500gt silent gpu, A Hauppauge pVR500 dual DVB-T tuner & a creative audigy se 5.1 sound card. All in an Antec Fusion V2 case.

All in all, the only problem I ever had was with the drivers for the sound card and that was solved by installing them in XP compatible mode. All in all, I am a very happy camper with my system. As for the tinkering, I didn't have to, but I have found that it helps the speed of the system to turn off unnecessary services.

Edit to say: In fairness, I generally turn mine on, have a look at emails, then press the green button & stare at the box/play music/look at pictures, so it's probably not the hardest working pc in the world. However, soundcard aside, it's never let me down.

[Pandalet]

My (work) laptop dual-boots between XP and Vista, and although Vista has some nice desktop widgets and things, I tend to stick to XP whenever I can. Vista is a resource hog, especially in terms of memory, so a machine that runs XP perfectly happily, with all my dev tools running, is painful on Vista. Without going into too many technical details, Vista appears to use a different memory management policy to XP, which is inferior for my usage. It also has a couple of irritating 'features' which I just can't get on with. No doubt many issues will be sorted in the service packs.

As regards 'downgrading' to XP, I would be surprised if anything in a standard laptop available today doesn't have an XP driver available. The very high-end, bleeding-edge ones might do, but even then, it's unlikely, unless they have Vista-specific features (like sideshow). I would suggest that you take some time to assemble all the necessary drivers from the 'net before you start, though! Also, be aware that there may well be warrenty issues - there was some recent press about a chap who had a hardware failure, only PC World wouldn't honour the warrenty because he'd installed Linux...

Unless the supplier is prepared to swap it out for you, you'll probably end up buying a copy of XP anyway. They are available retail, as others have said.

[419]

I would be surprised if anything in a standard laptop available today doesn't have an XP driver available

A lot of the latest Toshiba satellite laptops have an Nvidia 7300 graphics card installed. There isn't an XP driver available for this, either from Toshiba or Nvidia.

Toshiba will direct you to their website, where they say a driver is available, but it doesn't work. I've contacted the Nvidia customer support, who have confirmed that they have not made an XP driver yet.

[Parapunter]

It's not so much that there's no driver available for the 7300, it's more that it's such an appalingly useless graphics card that any self respecting machine refuses to work with it. I bought two of them buggers before I saw reason.:ugh::rolleyes::)

[419]

It's fine in a laptop, provided you don't need any extreme graphics for things like games.
For general use and DVD playing. I don't have a problem with it.

[Parapunter]

To be fair Mr. 419, you have a point. It sucked for telly but I understand it was ok on other duties.:ok: My comprehension was it was a jazzed up 6600 but I can't vouch for that tale.