Installing XP on new laptop with Vista pre-installed

esuhl

I've just bought a laptop for a friend who really wants Windows XP on it instead of Vista, which comes pre-installed. I have found some XP drivers and my friend has given me the XP installation CD (which is no longer installed on her desktop).

The question is... if I just format the main partition to install XP, leaving the recovery partition, would it be possible to re-install Vista at a later date? Would I then be guided through the initial setup/registration/activation process as if it was a new laptop that had just been turned on? Is there anything I need to be careful about (I'm quite familiar with partitioning, installing OSes, etc.)?

In case it helps, the laptop is an Acer Aspire 5920-302G12Mi (this one: http://www.simplyacer.com/ACER-LX.AKV0X.108-399830.html)

Many, many thanks in advance for any advice - I'm sure it's fairly simple, I just don't want to kill a laptop that isn't mine!

gaming_guy

i have used this myself and it works a treat

esuhl

Thanks - I might give that a go. Do you think it would be better to dual boot rather than just wiping Vista and installing XP (leaving the recovery partition)?

[Deleted User]

Is there any particular reason your friend doesn't want to use Vista?

gaming_guy

esuhl wrote: »

Thanks - I might give that a go. Do you think it would be better to dual boot rather than just wiping Vista and installing XP (leaving the recovery partition)?

i think its better to dual boot as you get the choice of both OS's and (for example) if one stops working, then you can boot into the other one and try and fix the broken os

totalsolutions

Leave it alone, keep a friend and stick it out with Vista. Much better in the long run and everyone else will catch up. Just go thru the cold chicken phase and they will love it.

OR why stop at WinXP use Win 3.1 and go really fast.

esuhl

anewhope wrote: »

Is there any particular reason your friend doesn't want to use Vista?

Mainly because it runs slower than XP (from personal experience - even with SP1), and if she has any problems, I'm much more familiar with XP so it would be easier to help out with any problems - particularly over the phone.

gaming_guy wrote: »

i think its better to dual boot as you get the choice of both OS's and (for example) if one stops working, then you can boot into the other one and try and fix the broken os

I have a few boot CDs (BartPE/XPE, Linux, a hard disk toolkit, XP password resetter, even MS-DOS!), so wouldn't really need Vista. Although, I suppose it would be safer/easier to have Vista "on standby", so it's just a case of re-sizing the Vista partitions if/when she wants to ditch XP...

Thanks for your help - I think I'll give that a go after dinner!
:beer:

chunter

totalsolutions wrote: »

Leave it alone, keep a friend and stick it out with Vista. Much better in the long run and everyone else will catch up.

What a philosophy...

tehone

esuhl wrote: »

I have found some XP drivers

Make sure you find ALL the XP drivers that are needed. From experience it can be very hard to track some of these down, even assuming that they were even developed in the first place. (webcam is an example in your case)

Additionally laptops with Vista is actually a good thing in terms of power management - its much better than XP

Or you could always install XP as a VM (if you don't know what this is then just ignore my comment!)

gaming_guy

tehone wrote: »

Or you could always install XP as a VM (if you don't know what this is then just ignore my comment!)

i tend to find VMs are slower than the host machine

Conor_3

esuhl wrote: »

Mainly because it runs slower than XP (from personal experience - even with SP1), and if she has any problems, I'm much more familiar with XP so it would be easier to help out with any problems - particularly over the phone.

So its more to do with the fact you don't have a clue.

Where is she going to be getting an XP licence from or are you going to be installing a pirated version? Remember that legally, you have to buy a full retail version of XP, not an OEM copy. Seems a very expensive way of being allegedly helped TBH.

Don't forget that Vista uses a different bootloader so you'll need to boot into system recovery off the Vista DVD, go to command prompt and use Bootrec to convert it back to NTFS 5.2 otherwise it will come up with Missing Operating System all the time.