[cyclones]

Hello. I will be purchasing a laptop around Christmas time for college next year. I am thinking about buying a HP laptop and I know most of them in the store if not all are Vista. Well I was wondering if I can buy the laptop, un-install Vista and then Install Xp Pro since I have a disc here. I talked to a guy from the college im going too and he said they would prefer XP over Vista. Im wondering if this can be done or are they strictly made for Vista?

Let me know.


Thanks!

[[t..o..m]]

Yes it can be done. You will have to download all of the drivers for your laptop (XP drivers not vista ones which it will come with), so if you are able to do that from HP website then no problems.

[Mak213]

Hello,

Yes it can be done but Tommy Boy is a bit off. Since July 1, 2008 OEM sales of XP have stopped and therefor the manufacturers are no longer offering XP Drivers up for download since they are Vista only sales.

So you will not find XP Drivers via the manufacturer's website anymore. You will have to dins alternative methods to get the drivers. If you are lucky the manufacturer will still offer XP drivers. But do NOT count on it.

Cheers,
Mak

[[t..o..m]]

Hence why I said if you are able to do that then you will have no problems. But yer if you can't get the drivers like Mak said then its not possible

[Mak213]

Tommy,

Sorry i was not trying to be mean. Just clarify the situation. As another member recently asked this and got upset when i gave the same answer.

But there is a way.

How to keep WinXP really fast & stable

Post 3 and beyond. That talks of how you can go to a site and get drivers needed. That might work as well. I also wouldnt place my hope on that as well.

Cheers,
Mak

[[t..o..m]]

lol no problems Mak

[CalcProgrammer1]

What model of HP laptop are you looking at. HP is pretty good about keeping a good list of drivers, and I saw both the XP and Vista drivers for my new dv9000 series laptop on their site. I'm perfectly happy with Vista on my laptop. I figured I would dual-boot Vista and XP, but everything seemed to work in Vista so I had no reason to install XP (though I do have 40GB unpartitioned just in case I decide to install it). I would NOT recommend deleting Vista altogether, I would dual-boot, that way you can have the advantages of both OS'es.

[KurrentEweser]

I doubt it if the hardware will change that much in the next six months. Windows XP SP3 along with Windows update should take care of most of the drivers. For any other drivers for the most part can obtained from previous HP models with the same hardware.

[cyclones]

Wow. Thank you for all the quick responses. My mom and I already agreed that I would be getting a laptop for christmas, so within the 4 months I will have one. Do you think that will still be enough time to still have Windows Xp? So is what I will have to do is purchase a laptop and then have to uninstall vista and then install win xp pro and then download the drivers for it, correct? Also, will Best Buy actually give me a Vista disc or what? I heard some people say that they will give you a reinstall disc, but not the actual disc? Do I have to ask them before purchasing the laptop if I can get the vista disc, or will they make me buy a retail copy of it?

Let me know please.

Thanks!

[carnageX]

You would have to make your own recovery discs, from within Vista itself. Best Buy would probably just take your laptop, make the recovery discs, and charge you $100 for something you could have made with 2 $1.50 DVD's.

I say, why not try Vista out? Uninstall the crapware they put on the machine, and then give it a try. You might be surprised at how well vista actually is, if you don't go into it with pre-conceived notions that its a failure. Ask many people on this forum that run Vista, and they'll tell you that it runs great (Mak is a perfect example; 3GB (or is it 2GB?) of RAM, and a single-core Pentium 4, and it runs smooth on his machine).

Just putting in my 2 cents worth.