Replacing Vista With XP

Replacing Vista with XP is something many people would like to do as sadly just about every new computer comes with a Vista only option so what choices do we have available to us?

Well we could of course always live with Vista as it is not such as bad operating system is it?

The next option which most people opt for is replacing Vista with XP - I will not use the term downgrade to XP as this implies a lesser system.

Most of the time removing Vista and installing XP can be accomplished very easily by booting from the Windows XP CD and following the install procedure, however there are a few things to look out for before attempting this, as having Vista installed is one thing, but attempting to install XP and failing, and then having to reinstall Vista is just rubbing salt into the wound.

So before actually begin replacing Vista with XP pop in the Windows XP CD while Vista is loaded and on the installation splash screen you will see Check System Compatibility this will confirm if your computer can run Windows XP and which software may encounter problems.

It is also worth checking that common hardware such as Network cards, both wired and wireless, sound cards and graphics cards have XP drivers available for, them which is far easier to do if you can see what is currently installed under Vista and download any XP drivers and put them onto external media such as a CD or Flash drive ready to use.

Otherwise, and I speak from personal experience trying to find drivers for hardware that is not recognized when we do not actually know the specific name/model of it can be a real pain as there are usually many variants to choose from and only one will work.

The choice is yours spend 30 minutes downloading drivers now in preparation for your XP installation or spend hours shooting in the dark downloading various drivers hoping you will get lucky, and even then its providing you do not need to download the network card drivers in the first place, otherwise you will need another computer to download the drivers, put them on to some type of media and then copy/install onto your other pc, this can be very messy and long winded.

The most common issue encountered when installing XP on a new computer is driver support, this is usually due to developers only writing drivers for Vista or 7 and this can cause issues from installation to using Windows XP

This can include XP not having SATA or serial hard drive drivers built in which means 2 minutes into the installation we get a problem as XP cannot find the hard drive.

The easiest way to get around this is to go into your computer BIOS, this can be accessed usually by the F2 or Del key, but this varies depending on the computers manufacturer, this is advertised for a second when the computer boots up.

Once you have accessed your computers BIOS look for the hard drive section, and change its settings to either Legacy or Compatibility, this will then make it compatible with the XP Installation.

If your PC does not have one of these BIOS options then the next course of action is to download the serial drivers for your hard disk before you begin, then copy these to a floppy drive and then insert it when XP prompts you for any other drivers.

If your pc does not have a floppy drive and most new ones don’t then it really is easier to purchase one, they are cheap and this is the easiest way to install the drivers, otherwise it means integrating the drivers into the XP build media using an application such as NLite which is very straight forward to use, but just means a little messing around, copying the files from the XP installation CD, then adding the drivers and finally burning it to a blank CD, then once you boot it will fins the drivers and should install properly.

If you find out that replacing Vista with XP on your computer is not possible, there are a number of simple changes that can be made to make Vista look and behave much like XP

This involves changing to the Windows classic theme and setting the classic start menu, for full details on this check here..

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