Installing XP on a Windows Vista PC

If you purchased a PC now, and you prefer Windows over Linux, the Mac, and other operating systems, it will surely come with Windows Vista. If you encounter problems running your favorite applications and peripherals due to incompatibility problems with Vista, you might find yourself wishing to uninstall Vista, and reinstalling XP in its place. This article will give you some advice on how to downgrade to XP from Vista.

However, before you give up on Vista, you may want to surf over to the problematic application or peripheral’s website, and download Vista-specific updates or drivers for it, if available. You should also get in touch with your PC manufacturer and tell them about your problem. Maybe they can give you some advise on how to make the application run on Vista. Also, and I want to stress this here, confirm from the manufacturer if they’ll still provide you with technical support if you decide to uninstall Vista and replace it with XP.

If you’re done updating drivers and all that, and you haven’t resolved your problem, it’s time to follow the steps below.

1. Buy an OEM or a full product copy of Windows XP from a retailer still selling XP. I’d recommend the more expensive full product copy, as an OEM copy, albeit cheaper, cannot be installed on another PC and doesn’t come with Microsoft technical support. Regardless of what copy you choose to install, it should never have been installed on another machine, or, if it has been installed before, is not currently installed on another machine.With Vista having hit the shelves, you might find that this is not as easy as it seems.
2. Install XP on your PC. It would help if you have a spare hard drive that you can use for this purpose. If this is not possible, just reformat the hard drive where Windows Vista is installed, then install Windows XP on that hard drive. Before reformatting, make sure to back up all important files to external media, e.g. CD-ROM, flash disk, etc.
3. Install XP-specific drivers for your peripherals such as video, audio LAN, printer, scanner, etc. I don’t expect this to be too hard, as most hardware have available drivers for Windows XP. The hard part here is tracking these drivers down. If you can’t find a driver on the web, get help from the hardware manufacturer’s customer support.
4. Activate your Windows XP. I’d like to stress here that you shouldn’t activate your Windows XP until after you’re finished with all three steps above. Otherwise, you might end up activating your Windows XP as a 30-day trial copy too many times. You’ll find that, when it’s really time for you to activate your XP copy, Microsoft’s activation servers might have block you already due to the trial activations.

Now you’re back to using Windows XP. Whether that’s well and good, only you can tell.

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