Downgrade Vista to XP...

Discussion in 'Software' started by Electro-User, Feb 2, 2011.

  1. Electro-User

    Electro-User Private First Class

    I have a HP laptop that has Vista on it and I want to downgrade it to XP.

    I have XP on my desktop and prefer it over Vista and Win 7 - Vista is terrible (Arrgghh)

    How do I do this? Do I have to reload all drivers?

    Thanks in advance
     
    Electro-User, Feb 2, 2011
    #1
  2. vistashen

    vistashen Private E-2

    Can you provide the model no. of your laptop so that I can provide with the appropriate link for the drivers to be downloaded before the installation of windows xp.

    Download all the driver from www.hp.com

    If you could provide with this info. I will be able to help in a better way.

    No. Of partition(HDD)?
    DO you have Windows xp CD of just Windows xp setup files?
    Which version of Windows xp?Sp1? Sp2?Sp3?
     
    vistashen, Feb 2, 2011
    #2
  3. Electro-User

    Electro-User Private First Class

    Its a:
    HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC w/ 3 GB of ram

    No partitions.

    I don't have a XP cd

    Would like to set it up with XP sp3
     
    Electro-User, Feb 2, 2011
    #3
  4. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Hi

    Could you supply the full HP DV7 model version as there are 61 of them and many have varying hardware, thus different drivers? The sticker on the bottom should list this or try the HP scanner HERE (use Start Detection)


    However your main sticking point to installing XP is not having an XP CD and Licence key, without these your not going to be installing XP, as wellas most if not all of the DV7 series only have drivers for Vista/Win7 on the HP site, so its a case of hopefully finding the drivers manually and this can be trial and error, plus if the laptopn has special fuctions, like media keys then there may not be drivers for those items.
     
    DavidGP, Feb 2, 2011
    #4
  5. Electro-User

    Electro-User Private First Class

    it's a Pavillion dv7 1424nr

    I may have an XP cd from one of mydesktops.

    I can just buy a new XP cd with license

    I take it that Microsoft dosn't supply Vista users with a copy of XP if we want to get rid of that crappy Vista system they sold us eh?
     
    Electro-User, Feb 2, 2011
    #5
  6. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Yes if the Licence from the other desktop is not in use then you maybe able to use it, but you cannot if its already in use, one licence code per PC (unless the licence code is from an OEM PC like HP, then your limited to that PC and would need a retail licence)

    Indeed you can get a new CD and Key.

    No but then Microsoft didnt sell it to you, HP did and you choose it, I found Vista ok, no worse than XP when it first came out and many migrated from Win98 to XP, it was a pig for a while.

    and this 2nd post HERE may help you with installing XP on this Laptop.
     
    DavidGP, Feb 2, 2011
    #6
  7. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    Greetings, Electro-User.

    As DavidGP stated, finding drivers for your hardware will be the most time consuming part of the downgrade process. Plus, I think you will discover in the long term that XP is rapidly becoming obsolete when it comes to 3rd-party software manufacturers, and Microsoft support for XP will eventually become non-existent.

    If you are adamant about not running Vista or not upgrading to Windows 7, may I suggest an alternative? You could always try one of the Linux distros (Mint and Ubuntu are a couple of very good ones), which will give you the opportunity to explore different approaches. An added plus is that you can run these OSes from a live CD/DVD environment for testing, and if you decide to install, you can set up a dual-boot system.

    Something to think about.
     
    Caliban, Feb 2, 2011
    #7

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