How to downgrade Vista to XP?
It seems that Vista and laptop can never be separated in the store. I was quite unhappy to buy this "bundle" at first place. I don't feel like to pay for another OS, and that's why I borrowed a windowsXP that is NOT a geniune copy
There are several risks I concern about:
1. After I installed XP on Driver C:, can I still find that vista recover disk, which is under the directory of D: Recovery??
2. Once I got XP installed, are there still chances to restore my Vista? since XP screen doesn't have the F11 key to deal with "system recovery"
3. Do I need to backup drivers for audio,display,network and wireless before the installation?
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"I borrowed a windows XP that is NOT a genuine copy"
That is illegal, and you know it.
If you want XP on your laptop, BUY the XP Recovery disks from the laptop Manufacturer, by Model number, if available. That's where ALL the required device drivers are.
Downgrading from Vista to XP is an extremely hard and messy thing to do. Even computer people who have their own radio computer shows, talk about it being a big pain to attempt.
Vista was built differently, so that you had to buy many new equipment like printers and scanners because older versions wouldn' work like they would on any previous Windows OS. It's quite an obvious trick to make us buy new equipment, which sucks royally.
I can't answer your specific questions, but some people might be able to help you. Some who've answered similar questions from others say it's not so hard. I've heard otherwise.
You might consider immediately signing up for a special deal to upgrade your vista to the new "Seven" coming out later on. It's supposed to have it's own XP version built in, not a legitimate XP, but a mock copy to run on Seven. The new Seven OS is being called very good, but then some think that anything built off Vista is a bad thing to start with.
Makes you wonder why all these new tiny Netbooks have XP on them!!!! When XP was supposed to be discontinued from support from Windows!!!!
1) yup. you will lose your xp install when you use it though. Keep in mind Windows 7 is coming out soon. It's pretty much vista with a lot of fixes in it.
2) yup. You can put in the cd that came with the computer for the 'repair' of windows.
3) yup. make sure you have the network driver at least. after you have that, you can update the rest via the manufacturer website. Dell makes this easy if you have a dell. http://support.dell.com/