Author Topic: Vista to XP Downgrade? (Read 1790 times)

Nightkid · « **on:** October 23, 2008, 04:22:43 PM »

I am currently running a HP Pavilion Dv5 Notebook PC that sadly, ever so sadly... Came with Windows Vista Home Premium edition.

Is there any possible way I can downgrade this back to XP? I can hardly run games with this thing. I have a nice video card (Geforce 92000M GS), 4 gigs of ram and it runs so very slowly. My games skip, my music skips and it lags horribly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is the only computer I have now, and I'd really like to make sure it preforms well enough that I can actually play diRT or HL2 on it...

If it is possible, is there any way I can save the data on my HD so if I did downgrade I didn't lose all my stuff?

Ciao,
Thanks in advance.

Brandon · « **Reply #1 on:** October 23, 2008, 04:34:02 PM »

1. Get a windows XP CD or burn it to a CD
2. format your harddrive
3. start your computer, press F9 at startup.
4. pop the CD in
5. select "boot from disc drive"
6. follow the instructions, install XP
7. profit

also might want to check me on this, never installed anything on, or owned a laptop.

Nightkid · « **Reply #2 on:** October 23, 2008, 04:38:38 PM »

Quote from: Brandon

1. Get a windows XP CD or burn it to a CD
2. format your harddrive
3. start your computer, press F9 at startup.
4. pop the CD in
5. select "boot from disc drive"
6. follow the instructions, install XP
7. profit

also might want to check me on this, never installed anything on, or owned a laptop.

Format my drive, as in... Lose everything on it?

Jason · « **Reply #3 on:** October 23, 2008, 11:14:11 PM »

He forgot a step: Invest in an external hard drive.

Not only can you backup your crap but you can take it everywhere aswell.

Stevex · « **Reply #4 on:** October 24, 2008, 12:17:43 AM »

This could easily be avoided if the store you bought it in was smart enought to let you get XP instead, but then Microsoft wont sell any Vista at all. What will it take for Microsoft too realise that Vista sucks.

Jason · « **Reply #5 on:** October 24, 2008, 12:39:39 AM »

I could bomb them.

Stevex · « **Reply #6 on:** October 24, 2008, 04:09:18 AM »

Quote from: Haywire

I could bomb them.

If bombing is the only way to make them understand, go ahead

Brulla · « **Reply #7 on:** October 24, 2008, 08:13:26 AM »

Yeah man, it's possible with most laptops and you should definitely do it. I've downgraded my laptop and everyone I know pretty have have.

There's one thing though. Before you go installing XP, you have to find out which drivers you're using and get the XP versions of them.

As for the data question...I assume you unfortunately have only one partition? If so, like the other guys said, you should get the data on another HD temporarily, external one for example. If you're lucky and you got more than one partition, just put all the stuff you want to save on it, and only format the partition which has the operating system (C:).

Oh and noticed you said it has 4GB of memory...with XP (the regular 32bit version), you can only use about 3,3GB of that. But don't mind that, it's still better than having Vista.

Freak Star · « **Reply #8 on:** October 24, 2008, 10:37:23 AM »

i will do this
but in 2 months because my computer need to leave the garantee
vista is too sux
i hate this
before it i will buy a new video card =]

Nightkid · « **Reply #9 on:** October 24, 2008, 12:03:56 PM »

Thanks for the heads up, guys. I am defiantly planning to do this if I can find the drivers needed. I checked the HP Website and they don't have anyone, though.

Neo Anderson · « **Reply #10 on:** October 24, 2008, 01:36:30 PM »

It's gonna take A LOT of searching the web is all. The hardest to find for me was the damn Ethernet driver so I could get the laptop online to do everything else.

Joe · « **Reply #11 on:** October 24, 2008, 01:38:05 PM »

Haven't MS said Vista was shit? I thought they were developing their next OS already.. meh what do I know, I never read tech news based shit. Its the real news which is interesting (Y)

Laketown · « **Reply #12 on:** October 24, 2008, 03:40:47 PM »

Yeah, they're developing a new OS already. Vista was to XP as NT was to 2000.

I think

XTO -- · « **Reply #13 on:** October 24, 2008, 04:47:11 PM »

Quote from: Nightkid

Quote from: Brandon
1. Get a windows XP CD or burn it to a CD
2. format your harddrive
3. start your computer, press F9 at startup.
4. pop the CD in
5. select "boot from disc drive"
6. follow the instructions, install XP
7. profit

also might want to check me on this, never installed anything on, or owned a laptop.

Format my drive, as in... Lose everything on it?

u got 2 options. 1° Only install windows, but before creat a new partition with enough space for backup and format only C:\ or q/e local disk with windows vista, and install XP (recomment XP X64)

2° Didnt tried this but u could try only installing XP and overwrite vista, (with xp-upgrade+vista works just fine)

madman · « **Reply #14 on:** October 24, 2008, 06:17:33 PM »

Most labtops have their fabrication name on the back, thats how i found my friends drivers for his labtop when i formatted his, do your research to get the correct drivers before formatting.

And on formatting, backup the things you need, when you've formatted,if i were you id partition your hd in pieces, ive done it with mine so i can have movies\music etc on one part and xp\vista on other.