Downgrading Windows OS

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by don_1

I have windows Vista on my Sony VGN-NR38E laptop, wanted to know can i downgrade to Windows XP straight away or will I need to save everything first and then format my laptop first?

My laptop didn't come with any backup CD...

Sony's don't. They tend to come with all the software stored on a hidden partition and a utility to write it to DVD.

[don_1]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Sony's don't. They tend to come with all the software stored on a hidden partition and a utility to write it to DVD.

So how do I save everything, including my files etc?

Which programme do I use?

Thanks

[Aragorn]

Don,

I don't mean to be rude but what is the compelling reason for wanting to downgrade? Even if it works, it won't be trivial. Imo, if the issue is just 'look and feel' it won't be worth the hassle.

How many OS installs have you done before? Even without the restoring data issue, installing WinXP isn't for the faint hearted.

Looking at the Sony links that Halcyon posted above, I notice the system has a SATA controller and there is no XP driver on their site. Unless you can find an XP driver for that controller (Note - the Vista driver says it's an Intel Sata controller - the generic Intel Matrix driver can be found here), XP is a non-starter. Even if you can find a driver, unless you have a USB floppy to load it during install you will need to slip-stream the driver into a custom XP install disk (using NLiteOS) - again not trivial.

As for backups, if you have a USB drive, just save the files you want on to there. Note - if you have used Vista's Windows Mail to store local messages, I doubt they will be compatible with Outlook Express.

In summary, unless there is a VERY good reason, don't do it.

[alexcopeland]

I would ask myself what is wrong with Vista these days? Do you switch your laptop on and wait a year for it to boot? I have a laptop with Vista Home, Intel Core 2 Duo and 3Gb of RAM and it runs beautifully.

[don_1]

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Don,

I don't mean to be rude but what is the compelling reason for wanting to downgrade? Even if it works, it won't be trivial. Imo, if the issue is just 'look and feel' it won't be worth the hassle.

How many OS installs have you done before? Even without the restoring data issue, installing WinXP isn't for the faint hearted.

Looking at the Sony links that Halcyon posted above, I notice the system has a SATA controller and there is no XP driver on their site. Unless you can find an XP driver for that controller (Note - the Vista driver says it's an Intel Sata controller - the generic Intel Matrix driver can be found here), XP is a non-starter. Even if you can find a driver, unless you have a USB floppy to load it during install you will need to slip-stream the driver into a custom XP install disk (using NLiteOS) - again not trivial.

As for backups, if you have a USB drive, just save the files you want on to there. Note - if you have used Vista's Windows Mail to store local messages, I doubt they will be compatible with Outlook Express.

In summary, unless there is a VERY good reason, don't do it.

I want to downgrade to XP, because some of the software/programmes I use, is not compatible with Vista. Also I think XP is much easier to use and I am use to that OS.

[AntiSilence]

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Looking at the Sony links that Halcyon posted above, I notice the system has a SATA controller and there is no XP driver on their site. Unless you can find an XP driver for that controller (Note - the Vista driver says it's an Intel Sata controller - the generic Intel Matrix driver can be found here), XP is a non-starter.

When I re-installed XP on a friends PC, it wanted a driver floppy disk for the SATA controller for the Western Digital Raptor drive he's got (which I had for XP32, but then I put XP64 on and I had to go and find a 64-bit driver which was a pain lol). But when I built my PC with a Maxtor SATA drive, it didn't ask for one at all. He may get lucky lol.

---------- Post added at 10:30 ---------- Previous post was at 10:29 ----------

Originally Posted by don_1

I want to downgrade to XP, because some of the software/programmes I use, is not compatible with Vista. Also I think XP is much easier to use and I am use to that OS.

I think that's a good reason. I had Vista on but had too many compatibility issues with apps. Would have lived with it but it was with Visual Studio 2005 Pro which is what I use for my business so Vista had to go.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by don_1

So how do I save everything, including my files etc?

Which programme do I use?

Thanks

Vista's Backup and Restore centre should be OK. However, I would recommend that you back up only your data and re-install any programs/drivers manually. This is because the programs may update parts of the operating system, or may need to make some changes on XP that they don't on Vista.

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Don,

I don't mean to be rude but what is the compelling reason for wanting to downgrade? Even if it works, it won't be trivial. Imo, if the issue is just 'look and feel' it won't be worth the hassle.

How many OS installs have you done before? Even without the restoring data issue, installing WinXP isn't for the faint hearted.

Looking at the Sony links that Halcyon posted above, I notice the system has a SATA controller and there is no XP driver on their site. Unless you can find an XP driver for that controller (Note - the Vista driver says it's an Intel Sata controller - the generic Intel Matrix driver can be found here), XP is a non-starter. Even if you can find a driver, unless you have a USB floppy to load it during install you will need to slip-stream the driver into a custom XP install disk (using NLiteOS) - again not trivial.

As for backups, if you have a USB drive, just save the files you want on to there. Note - if you have used Vista's Windows Mail to store local messages, I doubt they will be compatible with Outlook Express.

In summary, unless there is a VERY good reason, don't do it.

I was going to say more, but Aragorn has said it far better than I could. By installing XP, you could be causing yourself a *lot* of problems. Far more than you solve.

[Milambar]

Agreed. I tried to downgrade Vista Home Premium on this (made the recovery dvd's first). Wiped the hdd, inserted the cd, and it couldn't find any hdd's. I was very WTF??? for a while until I realised they were SATA and RAID, and XP didn't have the drivers built in. Spent over 2 days hunting for drivers that worked, finally contacted Compaq.

After explaining the situation to them, they told me "It is not possible to install XP on that machine as there are no XP hard disk drivers for it."

I ended up putting Vista back on.

In summary: Be aware that it might not actually be possible to put XP on it, if they have used hardware that doesn't have any XP drivers, especially relating to the hard disk.

[Aragorn]

Originally Posted by don_1

I want to downgrade to XP, because some of the software/programmes I use, is not compatible with Vista. Also I think XP is much easier to use and I am use to that OS.

It might be easier to look at whether your programs will run under a virtual machine (VirtualBox is good and free) or if they will run in Compatibility mode.

[Caspar]

Originally Posted by haydnwalker

Tis the same with vista. We have downgrade rights on all the new kit we buy at work as vista is crap in a domain environment from what i've seen

Lets now confused the downgrade rights of licences, with actual installation copies/instances of a Windows O/s.

You cannot and will never be able to take a laptop with any version of a Windows o/s and run a program to turn it into a version that was released before. i.e. you cannot and will not be able to take an installed copy of windows 7 or Vista and turn the machine into a WinXP, wthout doing a full clean install.


Downgrade rights purely relate to and only to, paper licence rights - which is legal permision granted by Microsoft.