Vista downgrade to XP

[glorydays09]

To many of you, OS arguments are getting old I realize, but I'm not here to criticize. I simply want to know the best way to get XP onto my laptop that came with vista home basic.

I bought the Dell Inspiron 1525 to do some home recording. Now I want to wipe out vista and put XP on there. I talked with Dell tech support and they won't even sell me the downgrade.

I would appreciate some input here. I'll consider a torrent dowload at this point since Microsoft has made my first laptop experience so miserable. Seriously, if you can give me some options as well as pros and cons, I'm grateful.

[Cailyn]

Microsoft will sell a downgrade to XP, but not for Vista Home, so the irony is that you may have to upgrade to downgrade. Either that or see if you can find someone pushing an enterprise version of XP on the web (which is technically illegal but that never stops people).

Call Dell . You Should Have Time To Talk To Them . They Will Tell You And Stay On The Phone With You. I Use I Mac With My Recording Buy We Have Several Dells. I Have A Dell Laptop Xps With Vista Install As Extra. Call Them If You Do Not Have The Time Warrantee. CrY The Blues To Them They Will Still Help You In Customer Service.

[spaceatl]

Go to Tiger Direct...$149 for OEM XP Pro SP3...I never buy retail...You can get Home for just under $100...

Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP3 OEM Version E85-05683 at TigerDirect.com

[fmw]

The most important issue is drivers. You need them for nearly everything in the computer and Vista drivers aren't likely to work. Call the manufacturer and make sure you can get XP drivers. I won't go through the rigamarole of explaining why you shouldn't do this. I'll assume you've heard it already.

[pauljo7878]

Hi There,

why not install both Vista and XP pro. Two seperate installs (provided you have the space on your hard drive).

Use Vista for surfing the net and general stuff including anti virus and use XP PRO (it's worth buying a clapped out laptop with the original XP PRO disc) for recording only.

Just back everything up that you want to then reformat the drive and create two partitions. Install XP PRO on one and Vista on the other.

I definitely recommend XP PRO over Vista for recording, why fix something that's not broke? XP PRO with sp2 (beware sp3) is excellent and stable.

Then when you boot up, choose Vista if your just doing general stuff or hit XP PRO if you are going to record.

Keep all your anti virus and the crap that we all accumulate on the Vista drive and install only the absolutely neccessary stuff for recording, on the other.

Anyways hope this is of some help,
regards
Paul

[Renegade Studios]

If I were you I would just downgrade.. No dual boot. Windows Vista is the New M.E., That was horrible for Audio... recording/or playback.

Go XP Pro, save your hair... I recently did that with a machine I purchased and its been a great experience.. the only thing that took like forever was finding the xp drivers...

HP even had a video on there site that had to engineers from HP downgrade a machine.. It was an interesting video...

I dont think that windows vista will make a comeback... If it were Microsoft wouldnt be rushing to get Windows 7 out..

[spaceatl]

Originally Posted by pauljo7878

Hi There,

why not install both Vista and XP pro. Two seperate installs (provided you have the space on your hard drive).

Use Vista for surfing the net and general stuff including anti virus and use XP PRO (it's worth buying a clapped out laptop with the original XP PRO disc) for recording only.

Just back everything up that you want to then reformat the drive and create two partitions. Install XP PRO on one and Vista on the other.

I definitely recommend XP PRO over Vista for recording, why fix something that's not broke? XP PRO with sp2 (beware sp3) is excellent and stable.

Then when you boot up, choose Vista if your just doing general stuff or hit XP PRO if you are going to record.

Keep all your anti virus and the crap that we all accumulate on the Vista drive and install only the absolutely neccessary stuff for recording, on the other.

Anyways hope this is of some help,
regards
Paul

Just curious about your beware SP3...What did you run into? I have had no problems with SP3...Actually, quite a few things seem a bit better...

My system if pretty dated though...

ASUS A7N8X K-7 Barton 2.01 gHz 3 GB RAM
EMU 1820
2x UAD-1
eSata card
Sonar 5P

[pauljo7878]

Hi,

There is an issue ( or was) with SP3 and the ten MIDI rule. Windows xp sees only 10 midi devices/ports maximum. With game controllers, motorised camera, joysticks etc, and of course keyboards and midi daw controllers all transmitting midi data the maximum can be reached quite early on, especially as windows continues to recognise the old midi port and the new one when a device is moved from one port to another. They soon add up. There were issues with SP3 being unable to release unused ports at all, even with the midifix utility.

There were too many monitering fixes in sp3 for problems that most people didn't have, The beast was over burdened.

But, if we are happy with the system why should we change it?

regards
Paul

[spaceatl]

I certainly agree with that....I guess those issues did not affect my rig...My ports don't ever change...They are locked on the PCI bus far away from the Universal Serial Bus...Man, that stinks...I remember reading about the midiFix...I did not realize what that really was...>thanks...