imbibe 0 Report post Posted January 3, 2008 If u have only Windows Vista installed just format the partition usually C: to uninstall. But if you are dual booting with Windows XP then Backup important dataPut your Windows XP CD in the drive & boot from that driveDon't go ahead with the install but instead Start the Recovery ConsoleYou will be asked to log in to Windows XP with Administrative privilegesEnter fixboot on the command promptEnter fixmbr on the command promptFormat the Windows Vista partitionThe steps are necessary because Windows Vista ships with a new Boot Loader I am assuming that Windows XP is installed on C: & Vista on another partition Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acid 0 Report post Posted January 3, 2008 I had Vista when I bought my laptop, I tried to dual boot it to XP. But somehow it got messed up, and I had to reinstall Vista, so I was back in the crappy situation... the lust to throw my laptop against the wall. Vista sucks bigtime.But I got one of my dad's old friends to fix it for me with no errors at all. I've been using XP for like two months now, and I haven't experienced a bad situation with it yet. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
imbibe 0 Report post Posted January 4, 2008 Windows Vista still needs polishing round the corners. I have used it for around 2 months & then got back to Windows XP. Hope SP1 will fix some of the glitches. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hitmanblood 0 Report post Posted January 4, 2008 This is not discussion about windows vista however I think that it is quite good operating system. Also I'd like to point out that probably formatting hard drvie will do the trick also however then master boot record should be updated, and sometimes these errors might force to to reinstall operating system or at least fix it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hagebyhemdata 0 Report post Posted January 4, 2008 Some of my customer complains about the new operative system, Windows Vista, and some of their complain are about compability issues(some program and games won't run on Vista), user interface(Hard to find settings and functions) and the OS loading time(Which are often helped by putting some more memory in your computer, since Vista requires at least 1 GB to run properly) For a couple of months ago my mother was going to buy a new laptop, and as retail the laptop had a Windows Vista preinstalled with 512 MB RAM memory, which should have work like a charm with Windows XP, but with Vista a barely functional laptop.Guess the store had to many complains about that computer combination, so they were offering another 512 MB to ease up. Sorry for going offtopic.As hitmanblood pointed out, the master boot record should be autoupdated, but instead of Imbibe's step which takes approximate 5-10 minutes, you could format Vista partition, and repair Windows XP installation from a Windows XP CD , which will take approximate 30-40 minutes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iGuest 3 Report post Posted July 27, 2008 Computer Stupid Uninstalling Windows Vista I just got a laptop for my birthday. It has windows vista on it and I am not enjoying the program. I want to change it to xp pro but I am having issues. Frankly I don't know how to do the switch. I have been told that it is not possible. But from the talk on your site it seems I have been missinformed. I am computer stupid. Can you give me step by step instructions on how to get rid of widows vista and replace it with xp pro? Thankyou kat Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rayzoredge 2 Report post Posted July 31, 2008 Computer Stupid Uninstalling Windows Vista I just got a laptop for my birthday. It has windows vista on it and I am not enjoying the program. I want to change it to xp pro but I am having issues. Frankly I don't know how to do the switch. I have been told that it is not possible. But from the talk on your site it seems I have been missinformed. I am computer stupid. Can you give me step by step instructions on how to get rid of widows vista and replace it with xp pro? Thankyou kat Make sure you have an XP CD, a valid serial key, an SP2 CD (if your XP CD doesn't contain a slipstream of SP2), and a lot of patience. It REALLY helps out if you have another computer with Internet access handy. Actually, it's quite necessary. You'll see why later. BEFORE you do this, download every single driver for every single component in your computer. Look up the make and model of your sound card, your network card, and your video card. Use Google to find XP drivers for those devices. Search through forums to see if other people have attempted to go back to XP with the hardware that you have and see if there are resolutions to driver issues beforehand. This is where you will need your patience. If you can't wait, at the very least find drivers for your network card. Save them to a USB stick or even to your external hard drive. - 1. Back up all of your important data to an external hard drive. (I stress external hard drives because mistakes happen... one of my friends who JUST did this accidentally installed XP over his backup partition.) Unplug it and set it aside. 2. Insert your Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive and restart your computer. 3. When your computer boots, it should try to boot from the CD and prompt you to press any key to boot from the CD. If it doesn't, when you turn on your computer, press F12 and make sure that you boot from CD. 4. The Windows XP setup program will now load (blue screen). After it loads, follow the on-screen prompts to installing Windows XP. When it lists your partitions, clear all of them (read the screens... I can't tell you off the top of my head) and then set up one partition to install XP into. 5. Setup will now copy files to your computer then automatically restart. After restarting, installation will continue automatically. Setup will prompt you for your serial key and to set up some regional and network preferences. The installation should take less than or about 20 minutes, depending on how fast your machine is. 6. After the automatic reboot after the installation, you will be in Windows. Insert your SP2 CD and install SP2. Follow the onscreen prompts, which will result in your machine having to reboot again. 7. This is where you go back to the drivers you downloaded previously and install them to get your hardware to work again if they are not being automatically recognized by Windows XP SP2. This will be the most frustrating part of the whole deal since you will most likely NOT have everything working hardware-wise because of driver incompatibility issues. If you bought a prefabricated computer (such as a desktop or laptop from Dell, HP, etc.), you can go to the manufacturer's website and download drivers from there IF they offer them for XP. If not, be prepared to do some searching if the drivers you downloaded before don't work. The worst part about going back to XP is driver support. Some computers that were "built for Vista" don't have drivers that work in XP... ESPECIALLY the stupid network cards. I once spent two hours trying to get a friend's network card to work on her Vista-turned-XP machine and it was not an obvious fix. You're going to need to be able to do some digging online on forums and such in the worst case. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Erdemir 0 Report post Posted July 31, 2008 I had Vista when I bought my laptop, I tried to dual boot it to XP. But somehow it got messed up, and I had to reinstall Vista, so I was back in the crappy situation...My laptop came with Windows Vista, too. And I wanted to install Windows XP and see that we can not setup Windows XP over SATA2 Harddisk. And I researched to find a way to setup Windows XP over SATA2 HDD. At last I found, you will need a usb floppy disk driver and a floppy disk, or you should burn your own Windows XP cd which supports SATA2. If your problem is about SATA2, I can continue to tell how to setup Windows XP over SATA2 HDD.Good luck... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
