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I want XP. It runs faster and is so much more straightforward. Any help or links muchly appreciated. Chars.
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Sounds good - let us know how you get on!
In other news...
It's just been pointed out to me that I typed 'Freeola' rather than 'Freehold' on a property website! *blush* :¬)
To be fair the pages were still being validated.
It's how I slowly convert my clients to Freeola!
FREEOLA on the brain!
In other news...
It's just been pointed out to me that I typed 'Freeola' rather than 'Freehold' on a property website! *blush* :¬)
To be fair the pages were still being validated.
It's how I slowly convert my clients to Freeola!
FREEOLA on the brain!
[s]Hmmm...[/s]
Thank you intelligent hi-tech people. Though 99.9% of your advice had me bonce-scratching and cold sweating, my technology advisor (brother) will be only too happy to get down and dirty with the drivers.
Or I disown him.
Or I disown him.
Hi Hmmm
Even with Dell’s of recent years the install of XP is not straight forward as they have AHCI enabled by default which native XP does not support. If you install XP it will blue screen and go in a boot loop. You need to go into the BIOS and change the hard drive mode into legacy first.
Credit to Dell though as the XP driver support for Vista supplied machines is excellent. You just need to tap in your service tag on the support site.
Even with Dell’s of recent years the install of XP is not straight forward as they have AHCI enabled by default which native XP does not support. If you install XP it will blue screen and go in a boot loop. You need to go into the BIOS and change the hard drive mode into legacy first.
Credit to Dell though as the XP driver support for Vista supplied machines is excellent. You just need to tap in your service tag on the support site.
As others have said - things aren't always easy!
Sometimes this can be a quick an easy operation and other times a nightmare.
We don't really have much info from the OP. For example if it's a DELL machine (or similar) you will have a resource CD along with your OS (Windows disks). This resource disk(s) will contain all the drivers you need. But if the PC has always been Vista then this won't help much as you'll need XP ones.
Often I format the drive, install XP and then use Everest diagnostic utility (you can use the free trial version) to find out 'what's inside' the PC.
I then download the latest drivers as required. It's always useful to have access to the internet from another PC to get any missing drivers or look up error messages!
If you've got a late(ish) version of XP it normally gives you a working PC without too much trouble allowing you to connect to the internet to sort the rest out.
But it sounds as if perhaps you might be better off finding a geeky friend to help you do all of this :¬)
Sometimes this can be a quick an easy operation and other times a nightmare.
We don't really have much info from the OP. For example if it's a DELL machine (or similar) you will have a resource CD along with your OS (Windows disks). This resource disk(s) will contain all the drivers you need. But if the PC has always been Vista then this won't help much as you'll need XP ones.
Often I format the drive, install XP and then use Everest diagnostic utility (you can use the free trial version) to find out 'what's inside' the PC.
I then download the latest drivers as required. It's always useful to have access to the internet from another PC to get any missing drivers or look up error messages!
If you've got a late(ish) version of XP it normally gives you a working PC without too much trouble allowing you to connect to the internet to sort the rest out.
But it sounds as if perhaps you might be better off finding a geeky friend to help you do all of this :¬)
[s]Hmmm...[/s] 
Some very good points made there guys.I did have the motherboard driver disc which I did need for the install (probably should have mentioned that !).Graphics,sound card drivers were all on that.DVD drives etc. just ran off generic windows drivers and self installed.I actually did find it pretty easy and straightforward and as I say that was about 3 years ago and the same PC is still running fine.It would be a good idea to download the necessary drivers and burn them to a CD as well as backing any needed documents up before attempting this task though.In my case the same PC which was a reasonable spec at the time (2.6Ghz Dual Core processor,3GB DDR2 RAM) ran much faster on X64 than it did on Vista.It also kept hanging on Vista when using certain apps.I was seeing rotating circles in my sleep as well as taking forever to boot up.Some apps and hardware I own including an expensive video editing program would not even install on Vista.Again no such problems on X64,the machine is still going strong and it flies.Will hopefully upgrade later this year (if funds allow) and go for a Windows 7 machine.
I’m afraid that it might not be as easy as you have been led to believe.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a laptop or desktop. The first thing to do is go to the manufacturer’s website and download all the drivers. Cheap desktop and laptops from PC World like Emachines and Advent are near impossible to get drivers for. A few of the big manufacturers are not supplying drivers for XP now.
There is a good chance you will need the SATA controller drivers which you need to copy to a floppy disk and call by pressing F6 as you start the XP install or windows installer will not be able to see the hard drive. Windows XP had no native support for SATA controllers.
Some laptops and desktops have bespoke graphics like Sony. I’ve had to modify existing drivers to get them installed. A number of machines have HD audio and you will have to install a Microsoft update before the audio drivers will install on XP (KB888111). Windows updates will not download it. You have to manually search for it and download. Some drivers now need things like Netframework, MSXML6.0 and Windows installer.
If you do decide to go for it make sure you have everything you need before you start.
Install the chipset drivers first. Then the Graphics and the rest can be done in any order. Its best that this is all done offline and Antivirus is installed before you put it on the internet. The Bugbear virus is still out their and in tests it took something like 8 seconds to get infected on an unpatched machine.
I see many computers with home installs where the hard drive is running in PIO mode and the computer is running really slow and people don’t even know their machine is limping along with pitiful data transfer rates.
I would advise you to do a memory upgrade if required and install Windows 7. That will do most drivers for you. It runs as well as XP and if you buy the professional version you can download and run a virtual copy of XP as well free of charge.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a laptop or desktop. The first thing to do is go to the manufacturer’s website and download all the drivers. Cheap desktop and laptops from PC World like Emachines and Advent are near impossible to get drivers for. A few of the big manufacturers are not supplying drivers for XP now.
There is a good chance you will need the SATA controller drivers which you need to copy to a floppy disk and call by pressing F6 as you start the XP install or windows installer will not be able to see the hard drive. Windows XP had no native support for SATA controllers.
Some laptops and desktops have bespoke graphics like Sony. I’ve had to modify existing drivers to get them installed. A number of machines have HD audio and you will have to install a Microsoft update before the audio drivers will install on XP (KB888111). Windows updates will not download it. You have to manually search for it and download. Some drivers now need things like Netframework, MSXML6.0 and Windows installer.
If you do decide to go for it make sure you have everything you need before you start.
Install the chipset drivers first. Then the Graphics and the rest can be done in any order. Its best that this is all done offline and Antivirus is installed before you put it on the internet. The Bugbear virus is still out their and in tests it took something like 8 seconds to get infected on an unpatched machine.
I see many computers with home installs where the hard drive is running in PIO mode and the computer is running really slow and people don’t even know their machine is limping along with pitiful data transfer rates.
I would advise you to do a memory upgrade if required and install Windows 7. That will do most drivers for you. It runs as well as XP and if you buy the professional version you can download and run a virtual copy of XP as well free of charge.
Small addition to what already been said: If its a reinstall on a desktop then no problem. If its a laptop though, you need to be sure all the appropriate drivers exist first before trying to install XP on it.
Hmmm... wrote:
> I'll second pete_21's advice.
Woo hoo !,I believe that's my second useful tech post this year.There's hope for me yet ! :)
> I'll second pete_21's advice.
Woo hoo !,I believe that's my second useful tech post this year.There's hope for me yet ! :)
Hi DL,
I see you've 'quoted/replied' to me but I'm guessing you may have meant to reply to the OP 'Just Tinka' ?
I see you've 'quoted/replied' to me but I'm guessing you may have meant to reply to the OP 'Just Tinka' ?
[s]Hmmm...[/s] 
Hmmm... wrote:
> I'll second pete_21's advice.
>
> Backup ALL your data - remember browser bookmarks,
> emails/contacts etc. along with the obvious docs, music, videos
> and photos.
>
> Then format the HDD and do a clean XP install followed by many
> hours of Windows Updates to get up straight...
>
> Then you just have to re-install all your applications and move
> your data back. But at the end of the day things will be nice and
> lively again :¬)
>
Had problems initially changing to Vista from XP, but all sorted and running 'sweet' now .....as long as it's Vista64 bit ... run Vista64 in Classic mode and 'chop' out all the 'chaff' ... then no probs, every application I need, even those built for W95 and W98 run quite happily with no objections:-)
> I'll second pete_21's advice.
>
> Backup ALL your data - remember browser bookmarks,
> emails/contacts etc. along with the obvious docs, music, videos
> and photos.
>
> Then format the HDD and do a clean XP install followed by many
> hours of Windows Updates to get up straight...
>
> Then you just have to re-install all your applications and move
> your data back. But at the end of the day things will be nice and
> lively again :¬)
>
Had problems initially changing to Vista from XP, but all sorted and running 'sweet' now .....as long as it's Vista64 bit ... run Vista64 in Classic mode and 'chop' out all the 'chaff' ... then no probs, every application I need, even those built for W95 and W98 run quite happily with no objections:-)
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