Downgrading OS's.

Hey Guys,
This is something I've pondered for a little while (came in contact with it once). Can you downgrade from say Vista to XP in general? I know that bit types fall into this but I'm not talking about that.
i was working on a laptop sometime last year and they wanted(after i got rid of the virus) me to downgrade it from Vista to XP. Now, I've never done this before. So I call a friend who knows this stuff, and he says that you can't just go and do that...something about a hidden partition causing problems or something. (Now, I trust him in what he says) So I just put Vista back on it.
My IT instructor says that there isn't a hidden partition and you can just go from Vista to XP by doing a clean install.
Help me figure this out guys.
Thanks,
Spock96

 

Some OEM computers have hidden system recovery partitions and custom MBR's that are used to access them. Some Dells have special MBR's for what is called an HPA area on the disk. This was awhile ago and I do not believe they use that part of the disk any longer. Dell has a

Host protected area

There were issues with cloning drives from a Dell with HPA to a new drive.

Otherwise on a clean unpartitioned and formatted drive, Windows 7 creates a System Reserved Partition. But that can easily be deleted along with any recovery partitions. If you zero out the drive, there should be no problems except the fact that you have to activate XP. I did know that Microsoft would let companies downgrade to XP but not sure if that also includes regular consumers.

On newer computers, downgrading to XP can have problems regarding drivers that are not available for the newer hardware and also SATA hard drives which XP does not natively support. The drivers have to be slipstreamed into the XP install CD if you want to take advantage of AHCI.

Easiest way to see if there is a hidden partition on a hard drive is to Boot a CD with GParted partition editor.

 

Word! Why do they hate Vista as it's not a steep learning curve at all. If they hate the UAC then turn it off and charge them when they get infected.:-D

 

Clean install is the way to go, no upgrade downgrade. Have a Dell here that was downgraded from Vista to XP, and also has a trial of W7 on it. The MBR was changed so no easy reinstall of Vista from the recovery partition, WINXP, WIndows, Windows.old, Windows O. and Programs x86 to sort through. It Has two XP Pro Generic OEM serial kieys, and the old malware stayed on the operating system from the original Vista install. Don't hybridize your Windows Operating System, it will lead to trouble down the road...:banghead