Vista to XP

xmascheer

Hi,
I just got a Laptop that had Vista already installed--however--its not compatable with my printer and i find Vista a lot slower than XP,

What i want to know is can i uninstall Vista and install XP or does this have to be done by a proffesional?. i,m totally computor thick so need the easiest possible stress free way to do this, also if i can do this will i lose any saved progrmmes i have etc.

Thanks in advance.

NeverInDebt

No you just boot up from the Xp disc and then when asked just format the partition either full or quick and install. Make sure you back up all data and have any xp drivers ready for appropriate hardware

What about Windows 7 can you get drivers for that hardware as its better at detecting hardware I have

Windows 7 is almost as fast as xp much better than Vista

Money_Grabber13579

xmascheer wrote: »

Hi,
I just got a Laptop that had Vista already installed--however--its not compatable with my printer and i find Vista a lot slower than XP,

What i want to know is can i uninstall Vista and install XP or does this have to be done by a proffesional?. i,m totally computor thick so need the easiest possible stress free way to do this, also if i can do this will i lose any saved progrmmes i have etc.

Thanks in advance.

What printer do you have? Can you not download updated drivers from the manufacturers website? I think you'd be better going forwards to windows 7 rather than back to windows xp. Windows XP will run out of support in less than 5 years time, so windows 7 will be much more secure.

pendulum

Your new laptop has all the drivers for Vista (audio, ethernet, wireless, card reader etc) preinstalled, and everything "just works". The biggest task moving from Vista to XP is manually visiting the manufacturers website, typing in the model number and downloading/installing the XP version of the drivers to get things working. Because the chances are, XP won't automatically find suitable drivers for everything.

Your laptop should have a way for you to restore it to factory settings, so if you screw the move to XP up, or if you can't get eveything (sound etc) under XP working properly, you can revert it back to Vista and it should be in the same state as you first got it. You should either have disks or a recovery partition for this task, familiarise yourself with the procedure before you start.

Make sure you don't install XP in the recovery partition, not a good idea.

The computer shop I work in would charge you £45 for a format/install of XP incl. getting all drivers working (providing you already have a valid license for XP) but it's not really a job you need a professional for.

You could go the Windows 7 route however Windows 7 isn't everyones cup of tea, I've tried it and will be sticking with XP for a while yet!

RobTang

pendulum wrote: »

....but it's not really a job you need a professional for.
.......

and then you come across a laptop which the manufacturer hasn't provided any XP SATA driver (and locks the bios so you can't use it under ide mode), and then you spend ages trying every remotely compatiable driver under the sun, and then if you actually get it installed half of the maufacturer specifc hardware doesn't have xp drivers either.

kwikbreaks

It will cost more for an XP licence than a new printer.