Going Back To Xp

stevens119 · 1st July 2008

Alright. I've finally had enough of vista. Here's what I need to know. I would guess the first thing I need to do before installing xp, would be to make sure there are xp drivers for all the hardware on my laptop. How do I know all of the hardware that is in my laptop? Device Manager? And what do I not need to worry about drivers for...stuff that xp instantly recognizes? I've done XP install over xp 20 times. I'm just worried that something is not going to work if I put xp on my vista laptop. Any advice from people that have had to do this, would be greatly appreciated. Vista is totally useless.

Alndln · 1st July 2008

The main thing is to get the chipset drivers from the source. If your laptop is Intel you can get them from Intels site which will have everything if you look. If you don't know the chipset number google your laptop model. Next, if your main drive is a SATA drive like most laptops these days you'll need to download those drivers from the chipset source as well and slipstream them into a custom XP install disk, or else XP will halt installation about a quarter of the way through prompting you for SATA drivers. If your unfamiliar with creating a slipstreamed custom XP install disk, a free software called nLite makes it painlessly easy. Here's a link to that.

nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation

ddp · 1st July 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevens119

Alright. I've finally had enough of vista. Here's what I need to know. I would guess the first thing I need to do before installing xp, would be to make sure there are xp drivers for all the hardware on my laptop. How do I know all of the hardware that is in my laptop? Device Manager? And what do I not need to worry about drivers for...stuff that xp instantly recognizes? I've done XP install over xp 20 times. I'm just worried that something is not going to work if I put xp on my vista laptop. Any advice from people that have had to do this, would be greatly appreciated. Vista is totally useless.

I don't see how you have a choice. Everything I have heard about Vista is bad. XP is relatively stable. It also just had SP3 released so that should have a high level of compatibility.

Don't roll back do a fresh install.

stevens119 · 1st July 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddp

I don't see how you have a choice. Everything I have heard about Vista is bad. XP is relatively stable. It also just had SP3 released so that should have a high level of compatibility.

Don't roll back do a fresh install.

I have SP3 on my desktop. It works fine. I basically have just gotten to frustrated to handle vista any longer. I got this computer in December, and the whole time I have had it, I haven't been able to do half the stuff I do with my other computer because of this stupid os. It came with Vista, so I don't think I can roll back. It there was a way to do that and keep my files intact I would consider it. And yes, everything you heard about vista is bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alndln

The main thing is to get the chipset drivers from the source. If your laptop is Intel you can get them from Intels site which will have everything if you look. If you don't know the chipset number google your laptop model. Next, if your main drive is a SATA drive like most laptops these days you'll need to download those drivers from the chipset source as well and slipstream them into a custom XP install disk, or else XP will halt installation about a quarter of the way through prompting you for SATA drivers. If your unfamiliar with creating a slipstreamed custom XP install disk, a free software called nLite makes it painlessly easy. Here's a link to that.

nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation

Can I put all the rest of the drivers on the disc that I need as well? Will they automatically work after the fresh install?it

Alndln · 1st July 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevens119

Can I put all the rest of the drivers on the disc that I need as well? Will they automatically work after the fresh install?

I don't think all. Things like USB and HD SATA drivers and the like are fine, but chipset drivers and wireless drivers have to be installed seperately from what I understand, but I could be wrong as I haven't explored nLite that much. I don't think nLite will launch installers, just include drivers that are already open.

stevens119 · 1st July 2008

So what would be the extra steps to installing the chipset drivers? Is this done before or after windows is installed? If it's just some more drivers I have to fix in control panel once I'm loaded up, then it's no big deal...now if its something that the computer depends on to run, then I may have to find a detailed description of how to go about doing this install online somewhere. I knew this vista thing was going to cause me problems as soon as I got the computer. I have never had to worry about nlite or anything out of the ordinary with a with a clean windows install before.

KingDaddyO · 1st July 2008

As others have mentioned, if you can determine your mobo manufacturer and model, they should have a page with all drivers available. Download as many of these in advance that you can locate. If nou sure about specifics, use Device Manager (or whatever it's called in Vista) to narrow the driver search. If in doubt, get all of em and sort it out after the fact - remember, you may not have any network connectivity so you won't be able to download unless you have other computer access.

Then backup your data to removable media of some sort.

Then install XP fresh. It should boot with a minimal driver set, which will give you basic video and navigation. Then open Device Manager, look for the YELLOW alerts, and install the drivers needed. Probably PCI bridge, IDE/ATAPI, Video, Network, USB.

Good luck!

stevens119 · 6th July 2008

Just a little update...All my suspicions have been verified. An fresh clean xp pro install with SP3 is now in my laptop. And it's so fast. I can't believe that this is the same computer. It not one of those "it's only running fast because of the clean install things" I've already put all my crap on it and it's running like a champ. No problems with pro tools, I actually got to plug in my snowball mic for the first time, I can use Wavelab. This whole time it has just been, the computer that I could do certain things with, but not all that I wanted. Now I can do anything with it.

I did the whole nlite thing, and had trouble when getting to the part in the install where you type in the xp serial. The nlite thing seemed real cool, but I was actually able to get xp in the computer much better by just using an old Sp1 disc. Luckily I still had the install file of SP3 on my desktop. I had no problems, and I didn't even have to enter a sn with xp pro. If you have a laptop with vista on it...get it off of there. It sucks. It will cause you alot of trouble. I have been dealing with that for 7 months. I finally got pushed over the edge, and did something I should have done the very day I realized that this computer was not going to be fast enough for what I would like to occasionally use it for. XP

1st July 2008	#1
stevens119 Lives for gear Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Nashville Posts: 1,082 Thread Starter	Going Back To Xp Alright. I've finally had enough of vista. Here's what I need to know. I would guess the first thing I need to do before installing xp, would be to make sure there are xp drivers for all the hardware on my laptop. How do I know all of the hardware that is in my laptop? Device Manager? And what do I not need to worry about drivers for...stuff that xp instantly recognizes? I've done XP install over xp 20 times. I'm just worried that something is not going to work if I put xp on my vista laptop. Any advice from people that have had to do this, would be greatly appreciated. Vista is totally useless.

1st July 2008	#2
Alndln Lives for gear Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: N.Y. Posts: 978	The main thing is to get the chipset drivers from the source. If your laptop is Intel you can get them from Intels site which will have everything if you look. If you don't know the chipset number google your laptop model. Next, if your main drive is a SATA drive like most laptops these days you'll need to download those drivers from the chipset source as well and slipstream them into a custom XP install disk, or else XP will halt installation about a quarter of the way through prompting you for SATA drivers. If your unfamiliar with creating a slipstreamed custom XP install disk, a free software called nLite makes it painlessly easy. Here's a link to that. nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation

1st July 2008	#7
KingDaddyO Lives for gear Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: East Coast, U.S.A. Posts: 1,797	As others have mentioned, if you can determine your mobo manufacturer and model, they should have a page with all drivers available. Download as many of these in advance that you can locate. If nou sure about specifics, use Device Manager (or whatever it's called in Vista) to narrow the driver search. If in doubt, get all of em and sort it out after the fact - remember, you may not have any network connectivity so you won't be able to download unless you have other computer access. Then backup your data to removable media of some sort. Then install XP fresh. It should boot with a minimal driver set, which will give you basic video and navigation. Then open Device Manager, look for the YELLOW alerts, and install the drivers needed. Probably PCI bridge, IDE/ATAPI, Video, Network, USB. Good luck! __________________ ~8^) The enemy isn't liberalism or conservatism, the enemy is bullshit -- Lars-Erik Nelson Now, when there's no longer surface noise and you actually have the ability to have the most extraordinary dynamic range, people aren't using it -- T-Bone Burnett The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them -- Albert Einstein I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white -- Frank Zappa

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6th July 2008	#8
stevens119 Lives for gear Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Nashville Posts: 1,082 Thread Starter	Just a little update...All my suspicions have been verified. An fresh clean xp pro install with SP3 is now in my laptop. And it's so fast. I can't believe that this is the same computer. It not one of those "it's only running fast because of the clean install things" I've already put all my crap on it and it's running like a champ. No problems with pro tools, I actually got to plug in my snowball mic for the first time, I can use Wavelab. This whole time it has just been, the computer that I could do certain things with, but not all that I wanted. Now I can do anything with it. I did the whole nlite thing, and had trouble when getting to the part in the install where you type in the xp serial. The nlite thing seemed real cool, but I was actually able to get xp in the computer much better by just using an old Sp1 disc. Luckily I still had the install file of SP3 on my desktop. I had no problems, and I didn't even have to enter a sn with xp pro. If you have a laptop with vista on it...get it off of there. It sucks. It will cause you alot of trouble. I have been dealing with that for 7 months. I finally got pushed over the edge, and did something I should have done the very day I realized that this computer was not going to be fast enough for what I would like to occasionally use it for. XP