i will be buying a laptop from dell and they have that stupid vista which i dont want. I bought a XP Pro SP2 OEM for $140 through my friends work place. how do i uninstall Vista and install XP Pro?

Thanks

From what I understand, the only way to do it is by partitioning your hard drive and installing XP onto the freshly created partition. There is no option on Vista to rollback unfortunately.

If you want to keep Vista you can use a utility like Acronis partition manager to create another partition to install XP, if you don't want the hassle of two OSs wipe the drive with a utility like Killdisk and start fresh.

ComputerMan23,
I would follow dc3's advice. I just completed the exact same task, except I wiped out XP and went with VISTA. You can also use a program called CopyWipe which you can get from here:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php Get the DOS version. since you want to boot from the CD or floppy anyway. A single pass of zeros is enough and should take approx. 2 - 5 hours depending upon the size of your drive and how much data is on it.

Boot from the XP CD, create your partitions, format them and you're off to the races.

I would also go to the Dell Support site to get all the latest drivers for your laptop. Search by model (once you decide which model you are getting) and make sure you select XP as the operating system. After XP loads up, install the drivers in this order:

1) Motherboard/Chipset
2) Integrated Graphics controller ONLY if you do NOT have a 3rd party video card
3) Video driver ONLY if you do not have an integrated card
4) Network drivers (regular & wireless LAN)
5) Sound/Audio Driver
6) Modem, Firewire (if available)
7) Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor

Now go ahead and install your other applications.

I forgot to give you this WARNING:

Wiping the drive will remove ALL partitions including the hidden Dell recovery partition and utility partitions. If you want to keep these, then don't wipe the drive, simply write zeros to the Vista partition only, then boot from XP CD, create a new partition or use the unallocated space.

if i parition the drive and have vista and xp pro on there how would it boot up and could i say use vista to 'learn' it and use xp pro for my school stuff?

Yes, it's called "dual booting". Here's an excellent link to help you out. You need to make sure that your programs and hardware drivers are compatible with BOTH XP & Vista or you may run into problems.

How to dual-boot Vista with XP http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista

It's a little involved so take your time and make sure this is what you want to do. Also, you don't have to use GParted to shrink your partitions. You can simply create a new partition for XP within Windows Vista from the Computer Management console under Administrative Tools, load the XP CD and reboot to the CD and install XP on the new partition. I would allow at least 40GB for the XP load.

I would suspect that you would be installing XP AFTER Vista, so you would need to go to a different page with the link given in the instructions.

Good luck.

how do i install the drivers? do i download them on a different compute and burn it to a disc then install them that way?

Go to another computer and download all your drivers. Identify in the file name what they are, eg: Video card.exe or motherboard.exe.
Burn all the files to a CD or DVD.

After Windows is reinstalled and you get to your desktop, put the CD/DVD into the drive and install each driver one by one in the order I suggested. If it asks you to reboot, say YES.

is the hidden dell recovery partition important if i have the FULL OEM Win XP Pro SP2 disc?

whats windows XP x64?

can i install a video game to a external hard drive then connect it to my laptop and play it without any compatiability problems aka software must work with BOTH XP and Vista.

Read this and this.



So you mean playing a game in XP and Vista that's installed on an external hard drive? I don't think you can.

First, check with DELL to make sure your warranty isn't voided if you decide to delete the recovery partition.

I would keep your restore partition for now and do one of the following:


Where did you get the OEM CD? If it's specific for your DELL you should be fine. If it's unbranded (ie: purchased from an online reseller) make sure its genuine by going to this site.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/howtote...a1043249fa.mspx

When using an OEM version please bare in mind
- it is not transferrable to another computer
- if you change the motherboard, you need to purchase another copy of Windows
- there is no technical support if you purchased this from an online store. If you got it from DELL, then DELL will support it

the OEM CD was ordered through NewEgg.

Newegg have a very good reputation and are legit. Most likely your OEM copy of Windows is too.