Microsoft to simplify downgrades from Vista to XP

[BTTB]

Microsoft to simplify downgrades from Vista to XP
Bought a Laptop last week with Vista Business OEM installed.
Other than the computer being slow I am not impressed with Vista so far and would prefer the chance to put XP on the Laptop instead.

Anyone else feel the same way about Vista?

 

[Darth Garth]

The spec of said laptop ???.

I got a HP Pavilion DV6000 with 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo and 1GB of memory and Vista Home Ultimate bundled is running just great on it except the built-in webcam does not work .

Not loss really as who wants to watch my ugly mug in Skype ???.

 

[killadoob]

i installed it, it looks cool but everything so complicated and been moved around to make it look different

for me vista was a waste of money till dx 10 games hit

 

[chiskop]

I got a new lappy this weekend with Vista Home Basic. It runs alright, most of the time . But really after 5 years of development I thought that Vista would be more than just a prettier face and a pretend security system.

I satisified enough with Vista that I'm not considering upgrading to XP at this point, but wouldn't be terribly sad if I needed to for some or other reason.

 

[BTTB]

The spec of said laptop ???.

I got a HP Pavilion DV6000 with 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo and 1GB of memory and Vista Home Ultimate bundled is running just great on it except the built-in webcam does not work .

Not loss really as who wants to watch my ugly mug in Skype ???.

HP Compaq 6710b

 

[BTTB]

HP Compaq nx7300 with Intel Core2 T5600 1.83GHz & 2GB RAM, running Windoze Vista Business (Basic - whatever that means).

Hi IC,

Looks like your system is similar to mine.
Mine is running only 1Gb of Ram with Vista Business and a 2Ghz Centrino Core 2 Duo processor.
I suppose I could upgrade the Ram to 2 GB.

What I don't like is all the third party software installed. HP and Norton.
What are your views on this?
I am not partial to software that takes over my PC.
As it is the Norton Firewall blocks out my Network and isn't the most user friendly piece of software I have used.

I need to make the Laptop work for my wife who is used to XP and I am not interested in "learning" a new operating system myself. If I had to go the learning route then I may as well install Ubuntu and be done with MS.

Anyway, what I thought was quite a beefy laptop sucks as far as speed is concerned running Vista. The hard drive light is swapping continuously and Vista takes ages to load or do anything.

Regards,
BTTB.

 

[neio]

Get a Mac.

 

[BTTB]

Upgrading to 2GB of RAM should do the trick, but then downgrading to Windoze heXPee will not cost you anything other than time & fuel.

I also hate the Norton & other HP s/w crap that came pre-installed, I [post=1049802]strongly recommend uninstalling the HP Credential Manager spyware s/w[/post], that might also speed things up a bit. I also uninstalled all Norton & Symantec [auto update] stuff.

I did try an Ubuntu desktop [LiveCD] to see if all the h/w was supported, sadly not, so I'm holding off on installing Ubuntu - but that is my medium term plan - to install & use Ubuntu instead of Vista.

Hi IC,

Thanks for the tips.
Perhaps I will uninstall those programs you mention first and see how it performs after that. The Norton Stuff is a 60 Day Trial in any event so uninstalling that is not going to make a difference.
I will probably just use the native Windows Firewall and see how that goes.
I have other firewall and anti virus software of my own too.

Thanks for the info on Ubuntu, but I wouldn't go that route as my wife would be strained to learn a new OS, but for my own amusement I could make a separate partition and boot option.

FYI I emailed the company that sold me the Laptop about Vista and this was their answer.

Yes there is a free down grade option from Microsoft

Redo your drive with xp

any xp

go to xp activation

go to where bill gates will tell u there is a problem with your key once u want to register

u call the number and tell them u want to downgrade

they will give u legal xp key

u enter the key

Regards,
BTTB.

 

[chiskop]

Nice professional tone in that email but useful to know.

 

[XCalibre]

short and sweet

 

[lsuacner]

You need a special Norton removal tool btw.

An auditor in town bought a top spec laptop recently, he got gatvol and had XP installed.

My friend had a PC which cost R25 000 and he is back to XP also.

So even if your system can run Vista, most people prefer XP. One of my friends with an older PC got gatvol of clicking yes to every little thing.

 

[XCalibre]

Everyone will eventually move over to Vista, might as well get used to it now