Vista to XP Downgrade - Comments Page 1

Yesterday I went back to Windows XP. Had no problem doing it with original XP disks and WOW what a difference. I had my speed back 5 times faster then Vista. My printer came alive again. After 5 months of Vista I will never upgrade to Vista again. Let Microsoft do their fixing bugs instead of me.

After reading this article, I'm still a little confused. My understanding was that certain vendors (Dell, Lenovo) would only provide "downgrade" CD's to owners of Vista Business & Ultimate, but not to owners of any of the "Home" versions of Vista.

However, I have a few clients whose new computers have something called "Vista Home Premium". Your article goes on to mention "If you own Vista Business or Vista Premium, explain to the rep that you want to use your Downgrade Rights to install XP Pro". So where exactly does "Vista Home *Premium*" come in? Perhaps you could clarify this for me.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the typo... fixed now. You are correct in stating that the "downgrade rights" apply only to Vista Business & Ultimate, not the Home versions.

Thanks for clariying that, Bob. I figured it was probably a typo. Leave it to Microsoft to create such an overly-complicated and confusing product matrix: three different versions of Vista (Home, Business, Ultimate); each of which is available in either a Basic or Premium edition! What genius in their marketing department came up with that? :-)

I had a computer shop install the dual boot of Windows XP on my new Compaq Presario laptop. This was after I gave Vista a fair trial and found it is way too slow for me. The only problem with the Windows XP now is the man at the shop couldn't find a driver for the sound card . Therefore, any time I want to listen to a clip, I have to switch over to Vista. I will be taking the laptop to a new shop to see if they can locate a driver. If they can, I will also have them remove Vista completely. I do NOT recommend Microsoft Vista to anyone.

When i put the xp disk in it says instal windows xp but its faded out and i cant click on it. Can u plz tell me whats wrong when it comes to downloading this crap im retarted.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sounds like you're inserting the disk while WIndows is active. You must BOOT from the install disk.

I bought an Acer XP laptop that came with the Vista upgrade option. Of course I forgot to create a recovery disk before the upgrade, but it didn't matter because there was a vendor diagnostic partition on my hard disk. I quit Vista because it was taking 10-15 minutes before it was usable. Anyway the Acer diagnostic XP recovery went well, it restored my original XP and even left my Opensuse 10.2 dual boot partition intact and usable.

I tried to replace Vista with XP Home and the install begin but then I got an error that said it couldn't copy some dll file. I can't recall what the filename is. Any solutions?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Could be a bad CD. Try cleaning it and retry the install.

Thanks for this information. But some caution is in order, as real life unfortunately doesn't always work as advertised.

I just called Dell to inquire about "downgrade rights" and they acted like they had no idea what I was talking about. Even though I was ordering a computer with Vista Business, they said downgrading was only available on certain models -- and not the one I was interested in.

Very disappointing.

I replaced Vista with XP home edition. Now I cant find drivers for anything on my laptop, the model i have only has drivers for vista. I now have a new laptop that is worthless. Vista ran so slow and it wouldnt load new programs without locking up. Of course now I have nothing except a windows screen that does nothing. Bill Gates sucks.

Milton - Did you have to reformat or were you able to go back to XP and save everything? I have had a similar experience and cannot wait to get back to XP.

Hi, I just bought a new HP laptop model V3600 bundled with vista home basic. Currently, if i downgrade to XP. Would it be possible to re-install back to HP later on?It seems to be downgrade to XP will cause some of the hardware failure. And i just want to temporary use the XP OS around half year.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If HP provided a "Recovery CD" then you should be able to return to the factory new software state. To be safe, you could make a backup image on an external drive, and then restore it later on.

Two questions:

(1) The last word that I have heard from some big manufacturers is that XP will be available on some models through mid-2008. Do you know if the downgrade rights will be available after that time.

(2) I began looking for a laptop for my daughter a short time ago. I have heard horror stories from some people who have bought machines with Vista installed and were unable to downgrade to XP, due to newer hardware not having XP drivers. (Kind of the reverse from people with XP periplerals who cannot get them to run under Vista.) Are there any resources available to tell us if a new laptop loaded with Vista is downward compatible with XP? Thank you!

EDITOR'S NOTE: I think the best resource for that would be the PC vendor. Aside from that, a Google search might turn up something on a forum.

Bob, you need to clarify your information in the Vista to Xp downgrade article. I contacted Hp in regards to the information on your site, and they said that the information that you have provided, is not accurate, and they do not offer any form of support for this downgrade, what so ever.

EDITOR'S NOTE: It seems that HP has discontinued (or changed their mind) about providing XP recovery discs. Sorry...

One thing you didn't mention was to gather as many XP drivers for the components on your machine as possible before doing the rollback. In case you can't connect to the internet, having the drivers on hand can be invaluable.

If no XP driver is shown for any of your hardware you may have a problem. Check both the computer manufacturer's web site and the component's web site for drivers.

How and whom can I get a xp disc so as I can down grade from Vista. At My age (72) vista is more than I can bare. Thank You

If you have a driver issue after blowing out vista and installing a fresh xp go to the computers'

manufacturer web site (if necessary on another computer) and download all the drivers for your machine and the xp operating system. Put them on a flash drive and upload them to your machine. Install them in each of the devices and you will be fine.

hi, i have tried to downgrade my new acer laptop that comes with vista home, i try to downgrade it by using windows xp pro, but it has an error saing that the harddrive could not detected, or like it cant see where the hardisk was.

Thank you for the information on the down grade. I bought an IBM laptop T60 with Vista and Office Pro installed from Levono. Vista Seems to work fine for me, BUT I have just a couple printer and a wireless connection. No fancy hardware. OUTLOOK 2007 is an abortion and Bill Gates needs to be Spanked, Big Time. I'm wondering if I can get a down grade for OUTLOOK 2007 back to 2003 and I do not know if 2003 will even work on VISTA. I'm wondering if I down graded from VISTA to XP, if that would help OUTLOOK from FREEZing? Great site Mr. Rankin.... keep on keeping on.

When you downgrade, will Microsoft invalidate your Vista key? Eg. What if you want to re-install vista in the future?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't see how Microsoft could do that. You paid for the Vista license...

I've written a how to downgrade on a sony laptop

http://vistadowngrade.blogspot.com/