Windows downgrade help.

DOZY MARE · Mar 20, 2010

Hi all,
My father-in-law had an unlicensed copy of windows xp pro installed on his computer. As it was not validated he kept getting these annoying messages from Microsoft. He then bought windows xp home edition. His pc asked if he was sure he wanted to downgrade to this older version. We installed the home edition version easily and there were no warning messages or anything to make us feel it wasn't going to plan. In fact during set up it said it was copying files etc. However after reboot he now has home edition but every single program and file has disappeared. He cannot get on the internet, has no virus protection etc. His screen is all pixelated but we cannot change the settings as it only has one colour option and that is low. It seems his computer cannot cope with the new xp, although it was fine with the xp pro. We have tried using system restore to no avail. He doesn't have the xp pro disk to put it back on.
I'm pretty sure we have ruined his pc. Any wise words from anybody? Help is much appreciated.

hrlow2 · Mar 20, 2010

Welcome to Major Geeks.
Pull up your Device Manager. Bet there are some yellow triangles meaning there are drivers for those devices needed. And bet your NIC (Network Interface Card is one of them)

DOZY MARE · Mar 21, 2010

Hi,
thanks for swift response. If that is the case (i'm not at my father-in-law's pc) - how do I go about getting them?

DavidGP · Mar 21, 2010

Hi

Its likely from what you are describing driver issues, the pixelation and bad scrolling are signs of a missing Video driver and also likely Chipset as that one is normally missed out, to help if you can produce the below log and attach it then this will help us to find the correct hardware drivers

If your PC is one from the likes of DELL, HP, Sony, etc what is the Make and model varient as this will assist us if we need drivers?

If your PC is a home or custom build what is the motherboard make and version?

To find this info you can use the likes of Everest to find this info, at times a summary log of your PC can help, to do this

Install Everest and run

Click Report (top menu) > Report Wizard > Next
Choose System Summary Only > Next
Choose Plain Text > Finish and wait for report to generate
Click Save to File and leave the File Name as Report, then click the Save as Type dropdown and choose Report files (*txt) and click Save (n.b. Save to desktop is best as easy place to find it, use Browse to locate desktop)

Then attach your log to your next post as per these instructions HOW TO: Attach Items To Your Post
Click to expand...

Sadly a clean install will erase all previous programs and files.

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Windows downgrade help.

DOZY MARE Private E-2

hrlow2 MajorGeek

DOZY MARE Private E-2

DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member