Upgrading Vista to XP!

is it actually possible to downgrade,bought a dell laptop and came with vista licence, is it possible to downgrade it to XP?
 
Dells are strange, they have all their drivers on custom disks. but having done it before, if your prepaired to find all the drivers you need, and also have a second machine to find those ones you forgot, then yes, its possible, get an XP disk and key and format away! Wipe it completely clean

use something like nLite to get all the drivers on your instal disk. Have fun!
 
Meh... light on facts and mainly sensational twaddle to be honest like...

I no longer have the obligatory 1-minute system lock that happens whenever I log on to Vista
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Presumably the sensational title was designed to generate clicks and ad revenue....
 
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lol... oh well i almost live in fear of the day i have no choice but to downgrade to Vista... or look forward to the day its improved... could be waiting a while for that second one!
 
Sensationalist rubbish. Graphics bugs? Vista graphics drivers are now very good. There's not much difference in gaming performance between XP and Vista, not to mention that DX10 effects are only available on Vista. I don't get any system locks or applications freezing out the system - maybe the author's system is too low spec. Everyone and his dog knows about the file copy bug and it's fixed in SP1. Vista boots just as quickly as XP and in my experience is more reliable.
 
Mattus said:
Sensationalist rubbish. Graphics bugs? Vista graphics drivers are now very good. There's not much difference in gaming performance between XP and Vista, not to mention that DX10 effects are only available on Vista. I don't get any system locks or applications freezing out the system - maybe the author's system is too low spec. Everyone and his dog knows about the file copy bug and it's fixed in SP1. Vista boots just as quickly as XP and in my experience is more reliable.
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Never had a problem here either. Apart from creative labs being crap. Oh, and Apple iTunes. But thats nothing to do with microsoft. Graphical glitches? Nope . . . none here, and never have. And ive been running vista for quite a while now. I much prefer it. I find my games actually run better.
 
Skeeter said:
most of the points are valid!
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Hey Skeeter, completely disagree with you there. :p

codingsanity said:
Windows XP is both faster and far more responsive.
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I find Windows Vista to be faster and actually much more responsive than Windows XP and apparently so does the same guy who wrote that article. :)

codingsanity said:
Is Vista worth the upgrade? So, far, just using my laptop as an example, yes. It's snappier, more responsive, much prettier. I find myself using the one-button off/suspend feature a lot and not bothering to properly shut down like I used to under XP, there's just no need. The search start menu feature has made my life a lot easier. Before, I'd go through my menus, setting up shortcut keys everywhere. Now there's no call for that. Mobility is also better, but I still wish they'd store IE settings like the proxy server against a named network, so I didn't have to keep fiddling that whenever I move from A to B. So, I am quite confident that Vista will be a huge success once they fix all the irritating little problems.
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Source - Here

codingsanity said:
I no longer have the obligatory 1-minute system lock that happens whenever I log onto Vista, instead I can run applications as soon as I can click their icons. Not only that, but the applications start snappily too, rather than all waiting in some "I'm still starting up the OS" queue for 30 seconds or so before all starting at once
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Very strange, I have never experienced this lock up and as soon as i log into Windows Vista I can start running my applications straight away and they load up instantly.

codingsanity said:
In addition, I have noticed that when performing complex tasks such as viewing large images, or updating large spreadsheets, instead of the whole operating system locking down for several seconds, it now just locks down the application I am working on, allowing me to <gasp> Alt-Tab to another application and work on that.
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The above varies so much on the situation, in both Windows XP and Windows Vista, when a program crashes, sometimes the Operating System itself locks up and other times, just the application freezes.

codingsanity said:
In addition, numerous tasks that take a long time on Vista have been greatly speeded up. File copies are snappy and responsive.
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As already been said, the transfer rates within Windows Vista are pretty poor and everyone knows that and I believe this is due to be fixed in Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

codingsanity said:
Automatic Updates has also gone through a performance facelift in that it no longer hogs your bandwidth when you're surfing, a nice touch.
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When downloading updates for my system in Windows Vista, I have never, ever experienced a slow down when surfing the internet at the same time.

codingsanity said:
XP comes with some impressive device support. In fact, every peripheral I've collected over the years works perfectly with it. Many have the device drivers preinstalled on XP, making their installation a snap, but for the rest it was easy to find device drivers on the Web. In addition I found the drivers quick and reliable, a far cry from the buggy, slow and sparse driver support in Vista.
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I would honestly hope that a Operating System that has been out for over 5 year's has much better support than an Operating System that hasn't even been out for a year yet. However, the support is now excellent for Windows Vista as a whole.

codingsanity said:
I've also found that XP seems much lighter on the hardware than Vista, when it's inactive the hard drive very rarely spins up, a major advantage for me, since I often sleep near my laptop. No longer do I have to try and ignore the continual hard drive drone, but can now sleep soundly just like my computer. I never did figure out exactly what Vista was doing with my hard drive the whole time, but I'm sure it degraded its lifespan with all that spinning.
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When you first install Windows Vista, it takes a couple of days to fully optimize itself and during this time, you may hear the hard drive clicking away but after this period, from my own experience, the hard drive starts quietening down.

codingsanity said:
This is another area where Microsoft has really excelled in Windows XP. Games are significantly more responsive, get much higher frame rates, and are far more reliable than in Vista.
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When Windows Vista was first released, the performance compared to that of Windows XP was pretty poor. However, the performance is now a lot better and is very similar to that of Windows XP. Have a read through this article. :)
 
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Lol, forums filled with half the people saying Vista rules, and half saying is rubbish and crashes all the time... isnt that just proof that is a bad OS, doesnt work on all hardware, and is a completely different experience on different machines. Ive had it work perfectly on my laptop, just slowly, ok on my PC, but with driver issues, and not at all on my SFF PC.

'Driver support is much better' is the worst excuse ive ever heard! I saw and used an Apha version of Longhorn when I was still in 6th form, which is 4 years ago, If the OS has been in development since then, how the hell are drivers still only just being made?

Vista does work on some machines, and very well. Other people try to justify their purchase by bigging it up, and others have had nothing but issues. Inconsistency is just the word of the day!

Personally, there is no major selling point for me to move off XP, and I seriously doubt there will be untill Windows 7 is released in supposedly 2009...

Oh, and a little point for anyone who says that Vista is much improved now than it was at launch, why the hell do we let them get away with shipping a duff product and then fixing it? Microsoft appear to be the only people who can ship a batch of 'oh crap, this is all the stuff that should have been in the first release, but we messed it up' patches and label is a major product development. If I bought a Ferrari and was told that it would only have 100HP for the first 6 months, improving to 150HP untill 12 months when I will get the full power, and for the first year it will only start one out of 3 times I try, and the brakes will not be supported untill 6 months in, im not going to keep it and wait!

Face it, it was poor when it was released, is still poor. MS should only release a product once its completed. If after at least 4 years development, and extensive beta testing its still not any good, then theres something fishy.

/rant
 
Skeeter said:
Lol, forums filled with half the people saying Vista rules, and half saying is rubbish and crashes all the time... isnt that just proof that is a bad OS, doesnt work on all hardware, and is a completely different experience on different machines. Ive had it work perfectly on my laptop, just slowly, ok on my PC, but with driver issues, and not at all on my SFF PC.

'Driver support is much better' is the worst excuse ive ever heard! I saw and used an Apha version of Longhorn when I was still in 6th form, which is 4 years ago, If the OS has been in development since then, how the hell are drivers still only just being made?

Vista does work on some machines, and very well. Other people try to justify their purchase by bigging it up, and others have had nothing but issues. Inconsistency is just the word of the day!

Personally, there is no major selling point for me to move off XP, and I seriously doubt there will be untill Windows 7 is released in supposedly 2009...

Oh, and a little point for anyone who says that Vista is much improved now than it was at launch, why the hell do we let them get away with shipping a duff product and then fixing it? Microsoft appear to be the only people who can ship a batch of 'oh crap, this is all the stuff that should have been in the first release, but we messed it up' patches and label is a major product development. If I bought a Ferrari and was told that it would only have 100HP for the first 6 months, improving to 150HP untill 12 months when I will get the full power, and for the first year it will only start one out of 3 times I try, and the brakes will not be supported untill 6 months in, im not going to keep it and wait!

Face it, it was poor when it was released, is still poor. MS should only release a product once its completed. If after at least 4 years development, and extensive beta testing its still not any good, then theres something fishy.

/rant
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Just read through this thread & your posts saying vista is bad so i would not call that half the people.
Edit: your talking about the slashdot forum...total joke.
I should not go by what people say on slash dot at all because many most likely don't have vista & just repeating what they have read else where to make them feel comfortable with staying with XP & to convince them selfs that they are not missing out on anything.

And you say drivers issues with your PC, that is not down to the OS...get your perspective right at least.
 
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Oh, and a little point for anyone who says that Vista is much improved now than it was at launch, why the hell do we let them get away with shipping a duff product and then fixing it?
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ever tried to code a OS that has to communicate with tens of thousands of extras and have backwards compatibility for almost 10 years worth of gadgets? ever wondered why XP is on its third SP? things need fixing. even something as simple as a game needs many patches. a operating system even more so.

if we went by your "should only release a product when its completed" mantra we wouldnt even have XP. we probably wouldnt even be past windows 98.

you cannot blame microsoft for other company's not supporting their own products when as you so rightly say, they have been given the code for almost 4 years.

you also see many posts asking about XP errors and problems. it has some fatal inbuilt security flaws as well and the people who like vista are saying its better than XP. Now thats inconsistency! shall we all uninstall and revert to Dos? afterall if you typed the wrong thing it had a few problems but overall it worked right?. weird how they updated it when it was working ok however?.... oh wait it didnt work, it had problems and needed updates

no software is perfect. and vista for many people is a very good experiance and they have chosen it over XP. its silly to rubbish it because some people have problems, some people have problems with everything.
 
Skeeter said:
Lol, forums filled with half the people saying Vista rules, and half saying is rubbish and crashes all the time... isnt that just proof that is a bad OS, doesnt work on all hardware, and is a completely different experience on different machines. Ive had it work perfectly on my laptop, just slowly, ok on my PC, but with driver issues, and not at all on my SFF PC.

'Driver support is much better' is the worst excuse ive ever heard! I saw and used an Apha version of Longhorn when I was still in 6th form, which is 4 years ago, If the OS has been in development since then, how the hell are drivers still only just being made?

Vista does work on some machines, and very well. Other people try to justify their purchase by bigging it up, and others have had nothing but issues. Inconsistency is just the word of the day!

Personally, there is no major selling point for me to move off XP, and I seriously doubt there will be untill Windows 7 is released in supposedly 2009...

Oh, and a little point for anyone who says that Vista is much improved now than it was at launch, why the hell do we let them get away with shipping a duff product and then fixing it? Microsoft appear to be the only people who can ship a batch of 'oh crap, this is all the stuff that should have been in the first release, but we messed it up' patches and label is a major product development. If I bought a Ferrari and was told that it would only have 100HP for the first 6 months, improving to 150HP untill 12 months when I will get the full power, and for the first year it will only start one out of 3 times I try, and the brakes will not be supported untill 6 months in, im not going to keep it and wait!

Face it, it was poor when it was released, is still poor. MS should only release a product once its completed. If after at least 4 years development, and extensive beta testing its still not any good, then theres something fishy.

/rant
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Flame thread or what?..Ok some facts Vista is more of a upgrade to XP then XP was ever to 2K,I have all working drivers(Vista x64) and 45 games installed and all working great in Vista ,you want me to go on about I'm still waiting for a proper working wireless LAN driver for my brothers XP PC? (drivers are down to the manufacturer of the hardware not the OS).Some people are scared of change and will say a load of crap about anything.

XP is on its way out, SP3 will be the last SP from Microsoft, you'll have to change sooner or later.

My XP PC is only used now for updates and I consider Vista their best OS so far, that's how well my Vista x64 is doing,oh and considering I have been using XP for nearly 7 years I don't say it lightly.

RIP XP new improved kid on the block called Vista :) .
 
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Let's try and keep this thread civil and not turn this into any kind of war, everyone has different opinions of things and we are all allowed to express our views. :)

Hello Skeeter, thanks for your reply.

Concerning the driver support, I would agree with you that from 4 years ago up until now, we really should expect support for everything and to be fair it isn't quite like that (Very close, extremely close actually in my opinion). However, an Operating System in it's beta state is a lot different in the sense of, many other problem's and issues could arise when it would get officially released to the public for the very first time, would that be fair to say? :)

Now in my opinion, since Windows Vista was first released to the public around 10 months ago, I honestly think that the support is a lot better now then it was back then and the performance has greatly changed from then to now. However, as regards to driver support specifically, surely this is down to the manufacturers themselves and not simply down to Windows Vista itself?

I am guessing that you are having a few problems with Windows Vista yourself, just out of interest and curiosity, would you mind mentioning a few of these problems please? Thank you. :)
 
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Most nvidia boards cant go online with XP without installing drivers for the ethernet, not to mention wi-fi, and oh installing on raid and some sata without a floppy drive!

I ditched my XP partition about 4 months back not, Vista is the best operating system available for the modern PC, No doubt about it now
 
Fire Wizard said:
However, as regards to driver support specifically, surely this is down to the manufacturers themselves and not simply down to Windows Vista itself?
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of course it is - it's completely down to the hardware manufacturers. but it's easier/more fun to blame microsoft..... :p

(i'm a happy vista user btw. runs great for me on my antiquated s478/agp hardware. :p)
 
the firingsquad article posted above clearly shows that games are quicker in XP with differences of up to 8% over vista 32 bit and roughly 9-10% of vista 64bit when gaming at 1600x1200.

I play at 1680x1050 and this mirrors my results exactly, as i was losing approximately 10% in performance in games and benchmarks under vista 64. When we are all clocking CPUs and GPUs to get the best out of our hardware it seems silly to be giving performance away by a choice of operating system.

I'm not impressed with the DX10 features that i've seen so far, so until there is a killer app that is DX10 only, i'm staying with XP with my higher framerates, even though it can't use all of my 4gb memory
 
what a lot of crap.

Vista is far superior to xp.

One of the best things is the new picture view. Has a decent zoom, can open more than one viewer at a time. There's so many little things like that. Which when you move back to xp your completely stumped without.

Spudgun said:
the firingsquad article posted above clearly shows that games are quicker in XP with differences of up to 8% over vista 32 bit and roughly 9-10% of vista 64bit when gaming at 1600x1200.
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The new drivers aren't even that. I see about 3fps difference. Which isn't even noticeable when you've already got 80fps.
 
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