Deadly Combo
February 20, 2008 5:31 AM Subscribe
Hey, my father-in-law has wound up with (horror of horrors) AOL and VISTA. (part of me just died whilst typing that) Is there anyway to downgrade Vista Basic to XP?
(Pro or Home, I don't care)
(Pro or Home, I don't care)
Is there a way? Yes. Legally? Depends on whether you have a legal copy of XP to install. Some computer manufacturers are willing to give out an XP disk (usually not for free though). You may also run into problems with drivers; there are a fre computer parts that have Vista drivers but none for XP (mostly custom drivers for laptops though I believe, for a desktop you ought to be fine).
Back up anything important, nuke the drive, make sure booting from CD is enabled, stick in XP disk and follow directions to install. 30 minutes and 3,000 security updates later, you ought to be looking at a fresh XP system with no AOL. Don't bother installing anything until the security updates are finished, and if you don't have an SP2 disk you'll want to download SP2 directly, save it to a disk and install it that way BEFORE the computer is plugged in to any kind of internet connection. A pre-SP2 XP system on a network (even dial-up) is likely going to be hosed in some way or another before the service pack download finishes.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:44 AM on February 20, 2008
Back up anything important, nuke the drive, make sure booting from CD is enabled, stick in XP disk and follow directions to install. 30 minutes and 3,000 security updates later, you ought to be looking at a fresh XP system with no AOL. Don't bother installing anything until the security updates are finished, and if you don't have an SP2 disk you'll want to download SP2 directly, save it to a disk and install it that way BEFORE the computer is plugged in to any kind of internet connection. A pre-SP2 XP system on a network (even dial-up) is likely going to be hosed in some way or another before the service pack download finishes.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:44 AM on February 20, 2008
Response by poster: Good answer, but I would need to purchase XP.
Screw it, I may just go for Wubi :-)
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:44 AM on February 20, 2008
Screw it, I may just go for Wubi :-)
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:44 AM on February 20, 2008
I'm not sure how castrated Basic is, but I went from Linux(!)/OS X to Vista Home Premium and despite being a piss-poor development environment it's the first version of Windows I haven't clawed my eyes out at.
I would suggest doing a bunch of things to stop it from pissing you off, like turning off the User Access Control or whatever causes it to give you the 20-questions schtick. I'd also get used to typing the program you want into the start bar instead of browsing it. That will save you a world of hurt and it's way quicker to begin with.
If you do want to XP it, the previous posts have it down.
posted by man why you even got to do a thing at 6:17 AM on February 20, 2008
I would suggest doing a bunch of things to stop it from pissing you off, like turning off the User Access Control or whatever causes it to give you the 20-questions schtick. I'd also get used to typing the program you want into the start bar instead of browsing it. That will save you a world of hurt and it's way quicker to begin with.
If you do want to XP it, the previous posts have it down.
posted by man why you even got to do a thing at 6:17 AM on February 20, 2008
does your father-in-law have problems with vista? i ask because it is unclear from your post if this is something you are doing because you think it is best for him or if he has expressed unhappiness with his os.
posted by phil at 6:34 AM on February 20, 2008
posted by phil at 6:34 AM on February 20, 2008
Response by poster: It'll be down to me to support it, and he won't care either way, so I'd like to nuke Vista off of it.
posted by chuckdarwin at 7:22 AM on February 20, 2008
posted by chuckdarwin at 7:22 AM on February 20, 2008
Best answer: From MS about downgrade rights. It is a PDF. You can downgrade if you have Vista Business or Ultimate. Otherwise you must purchase a license.
posted by Climber at 7:29 AM on February 20, 2008
posted by Climber at 7:29 AM on February 20, 2008
Best answer: There's no such thing as a downgrade operation. What you will be doing is completely wiping a computer and putting a new OS on it. This requires at the very least all the XP drivers for your hardware. I suggest you read this question from last week on the exact same topic.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:18 AM on February 20, 2008
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:18 AM on February 20, 2008
i am not sure that your assertion that supporting a xp machine is going to be less work than supporting a vista machine is true.
have you used a vista machine or have you made this decision solely on negative press? for a long time i was perfectly willing to believe that vista was a steaming pile, that is until i actually used it. aside from the inordinate amount of memory it uses i have not had any complaints.
posted by phil at 8:23 AM on February 20, 2008
have you used a vista machine or have you made this decision solely on negative press? for a long time i was perfectly willing to believe that vista was a steaming pile, that is until i actually used it. aside from the inordinate amount of memory it uses i have not had any complaints.
posted by phil at 8:23 AM on February 20, 2008
Response by poster: aside from the inordinate amount of memory it uses i have not had any complaints.
Apparently, it's four times slower than XP on any number of tests (data transfer, etc)... and that's WITH two gigs of RAM.
posted by chuckdarwin at 8:29 AM on February 20, 2008
Apparently, it's four times slower than XP on any number of tests (data transfer, etc)... and that's WITH two gigs of RAM.
posted by chuckdarwin at 8:29 AM on February 20, 2008
the data transfer issue you mention has been addressed, see KB938979 and KB931770. performance can be improved further by disabling the feature which calculates the number of files/folders being copied.
there is a lot of misinformation out there about vista. this is why i asked if you had used it and personally encountered problems. like you i was unhappy that my computer came preinstalled with vista and initially considered switching to xp. i changed my mind after spending some time using vista and realizing it failed to live up to the hype of being a spectacular failure.
because you have not indicated which version of vista is being used i do not know if you need to purchase xp or not. if you need to purchase xp additional ram will certainly be cheaper.
posted by phil at 8:48 AM on February 20, 2008
there is a lot of misinformation out there about vista. this is why i asked if you had used it and personally encountered problems. like you i was unhappy that my computer came preinstalled with vista and initially considered switching to xp. i changed my mind after spending some time using vista and realizing it failed to live up to the hype of being a spectacular failure.
because you have not indicated which version of vista is being used i do not know if you need to purchase xp or not. if you need to purchase xp additional ram will certainly be cheaper.
posted by phil at 8:48 AM on February 20, 2008
Yeah, file operations are strangely slow on the current pre-sp1 product. I have the RTM SP1 installed on a test machine sitting next to me and have been playing 'Lets see whose faster' over our lan with an XP machine. The results of my very very informal tests are that the file copies are about the same speed now. Also the dialogue box doesnt take 10 seconds to estimate the amount of time the copy takes. It works just like XP now. This is over 100mbps, so YMMV. I'd really wait until SP1 gets released before doing anything time consuming and frustrating.
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:07 AM on February 20, 2008
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:07 AM on February 20, 2008
Response by poster: Thanks, dda.
If it were my machine, I'd dual boot it to ubuntu. Quick, painless, efficient.
posted by chuckdarwin at 9:59 AM on February 20, 2008 [1 favorite]
If it were my machine, I'd dual boot it to ubuntu. Quick, painless, efficient.
posted by chuckdarwin at 9:59 AM on February 20, 2008 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: phil, it's Vista Basic (as I said in the bold question)...
posted by chuckdarwin at 10:00 AM on February 20, 2008
posted by chuckdarwin at 10:00 AM on February 20, 2008
so there it is in big bold letters. anyhow my point still stands. you can purchase an additional 2GB of quality ram for less than half the price of an oem copy of xp.
posted by phil at 10:11 AM on February 20, 2008
posted by phil at 10:11 AM on February 20, 2008
chuckdarwin, have you seen any specific problems with the Vista install, or are you basing your plan on tests elsewhere? Unless your father-in-law is a hardcore FPS player, he's unlikely to run into any performance issues.
I have Vista Basic on both of my daughter's computers and have seen no significant performance problem on either in their normal routines (web surfing, webcams, email, light gaming). Perhaps you should try it yourself. To power users, Vista may seem limiting, but to the average user it seems to be a positive experience, especially on a new machine.
If you still want to downgrade, you'll need a full install XP disc. If the new computer has SATA drives, you'll need to find a way to get the SATA drivers on a floppy disc. An XP install onto a computer with only SATA drives requires a floppy drive and a floppy disc with the SATA drivers.
If you have all that, it should be straight forward. You might need to download appropriate drivers after the install directly from manufacturer web sites.
Good luck.
posted by Argyle at 10:47 AM on February 20, 2008
I have Vista Basic on both of my daughter's computers and have seen no significant performance problem on either in their normal routines (web surfing, webcams, email, light gaming). Perhaps you should try it yourself. To power users, Vista may seem limiting, but to the average user it seems to be a positive experience, especially on a new machine.
If you still want to downgrade, you'll need a full install XP disc. If the new computer has SATA drives, you'll need to find a way to get the SATA drivers on a floppy disc. An XP install onto a computer with only SATA drives requires a floppy drive and a floppy disc with the SATA drivers.
If you have all that, it should be straight forward. You might need to download appropriate drivers after the install directly from manufacturer web sites.
Good luck.
posted by Argyle at 10:47 AM on February 20, 2008
Biggest problem I see in supporting Vista is the same problem I would have supporting it: I don't have it, I don't know what Microsoft in their infinite wisdom has opted to change*, but trying to tell someone else how to do something (especially over the phone) when I don't have any clue what they are seeing or how to get to the correct options, well that's just not an option. So, don't look at the question as "Vista sucks, how do I get XP" so much as "I have no experience with this, do not use it myself and will therefore be unable to help anyone with it, so how do I downgrade?"
*Try this as an example. Open a copy of XP and find the MAC address for your ethernet card. It's as simple as right click network connection icon --> properties --> support --> and maybe an "advanced" button, but there it is. Now do the same thing in Vista. Right-click network icon... wait, what? Aside from the incessant asking for authorization (which is insanely annoying - and sadly in terms of security not something you want to leave disabled in a computer hooked to a network) it took me a really, really long time to find the MAC address. You find it yet? Give up? Well, it's not a MAC address, it's a "Machine Address" or some such (Windows Help doesn't use, list or index common synonyms, apparently), and searching Windows Help doesn't actually help even if you do know what Microsoft wants you to call it. I finally found it by accident. When you mouse over the right field in the right pop-up screen in the right "Properties" window, it appears by magic IN A DAMN TOOLTIP. Wow, that makes SO much sense, Microsoft. Way to go.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:20 AM on February 20, 2008
*Try this as an example. Open a copy of XP and find the MAC address for your ethernet card. It's as simple as right click network connection icon --> properties --> support --> and maybe an "advanced" button, but there it is. Now do the same thing in Vista. Right-click network icon... wait, what? Aside from the incessant asking for authorization (which is insanely annoying - and sadly in terms of security not something you want to leave disabled in a computer hooked to a network) it took me a really, really long time to find the MAC address. You find it yet? Give up? Well, it's not a MAC address, it's a "Machine Address" or some such (Windows Help doesn't use, list or index common synonyms, apparently), and searching Windows Help doesn't actually help even if you do know what Microsoft wants you to call it. I finally found it by accident. When you mouse over the right field in the right pop-up screen in the right "Properties" window, it appears by magic IN A DAMN TOOLTIP. Wow, that makes SO much sense, Microsoft. Way to go.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:20 AM on February 20, 2008
caution live frogs is right raises a valid point. Performance issues aside it will be sufficiently more difficult to support an operating system the OP does not use.
That being said, you can find the Media Access Control by typing "ipconfig /all" in either operating system.
posted by mailbox125 at 11:47 AM on February 20, 2008
That being said, you can find the Media Access Control by typing "ipconfig /all" in either operating system.
posted by mailbox125 at 11:47 AM on February 20, 2008
Chuck Darwin:
You seem to imply he's not much of a computer guru. Most likely he just wants to browse the web and type the occasional document / spreadsheet. And doesn't know much about security. By down grading him to XP, you remove some of the more advanced security features in Vista. Right now Microsoft is releasing patches for both XP and Vista, but you know this will continuously shift. Just something to keep in mind.
Caution Live Frogs:
Start -> Run -> CMD -> ipconfig /all
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : FF-FF-BB-AA-AA-69
Hasn't changed since Win95. Help is written for people like Chuck's dad, not people who are likely to be administrating something.
posted by jeffamaphone at 12:01 PM on February 20, 2008 [1 favorite]
You seem to imply he's not much of a computer guru. Most likely he just wants to browse the web and type the occasional document / spreadsheet. And doesn't know much about security. By down grading him to XP, you remove some of the more advanced security features in Vista. Right now Microsoft is releasing patches for both XP and Vista, but you know this will continuously shift. Just something to keep in mind.
Caution Live Frogs:
Start -> Run -> CMD -> ipconfig /all
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : FF-FF-BB-AA-AA-69
Hasn't changed since Win95. Help is written for people like Chuck's dad, not people who are likely to be administrating something.
posted by jeffamaphone at 12:01 PM on February 20, 2008 [1 favorite]
clf, have them send you a remote assistance. or if these are people you regularly support use something like vnc sc.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:29 PM on February 20, 2008
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:29 PM on February 20, 2008
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a) check that the machine isn't too new to have XP drivers;
b) save any documents and email, etc;
c) do a reinstall from scratch using XP - you may need to blow away the Vista partition.
posted by blue_wardrobe at 5:39 AM on February 20, 2008