New HP with Vista.... Switch to XP?

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C_olin

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I picked up an HP Pavilion dv9000 today for school. The computer is great, but Vista is not. How can I install XP on it. I have an XP pro disk, but I'm assuming I'll need HP drivers/software.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?
 
Once you remove Vista by deletion of the primary partition on the drive there you void the warranty. You know that don't you? You would need a drive partitioning tool to see the Vista primary and likely the hidden recovery partition totally removed. The XP installer can't do that due to Vista being the newer version of Windows there.

HP's support site would be he place to look for updates on that model for XP before trying this. Those should be seen since Vista is still the new OS out from Microsoft. After verifying those will be available you then simply reformat the Vista primary if not deleted entirely for a new one and install XP onto that.
 
I have similar problem.
I hope I am not interfiar into your thread.

What if you make the original partition very small, just enough for Vista.

and create a new one for whatever you want to install?
XP, Linux.. whatever..
 
You can shrink a primary down to a certain degree depending on how drive space is already used up. Remember to allow for the 2gb or more reserved by Windows for the paging file even if you have that disabled. Windows will still reserve that automatically.

There are a few article on adding XP into the Vista boot loader that never seem to actually work. Besides tampering with partitions while still under a warranty dealer or manufacturer's you may want to consider adding a second hard drive in and simply unplug the then primary for a clean install there.

You can use a drive tool like GParted live for cd if you have plans on adding a distro there. On the old 939 build here I had both Vista along with XP Pro and Home versions on separate hard drives with XP Pro as default on the first of 2 sata models. XP Home was on the first ide with Vista on the second plus Solaris and later Mandriva was run there.
 
I have the same lappy, could be with better specs, so im wondering what you dont like about vista. Works great on mine and i personally like it quite a bit.
 
There are a few things about Vista that turn many away fast. For one many got in on the beta versions for evaluation and wondered why gaming saw problems and dragged? That was their misunderstanding of what "evaluation" actual means with a beta release of anything.

One thing I was discouraged by is the lack of being able to remove Windows components. That option formerly seen in the add/remove programs is gone with the new Programs + Features style.

Most will also notice the larger demand for available system memory since there are more new feature auto loading along with Windows. 2gb is the common recommendation for the average user. Gamers complain the most.
 
Well most dont buy a laptop to game, which is where my question comes in. I just got a DV9000 used last week, has 2 gigs ram, C2D T5500, Go7600 so its on the higher end and havent used vista on a lower end system. So im wondering if its performance or what that's turning the OP away.
 
XP saw a glory over the older versions being the fastest to reach the desktop with it's performance in mind design there. The service packs later seen are what have kept the version alive until MS finally skipped SP3 to push Vista out.

SP3 and the SP1 for Vista are now seen in beta form being tested before their actual final version release. Vista has advertised as seeing customer satifaction over performance with the new feature including a hardware protection process seen in the Ultimate edition. Many have complained about lags seen while gaming.

Here I found that some games like 6 or 7yrs. old at this time actually run better and have fewer crashes then seen on XP. That's a good one while much newer games like Metal of Honor: Allied Assault(2005) won't even install on the new version. A few popular like Half Life 2, Fear, Prey made the trip but Steam's latest update has it's own problems.
 
Once you remove Vista by deletion of the primary partition on the drive there you void the warranty. You know that don't you? You would need a drive partitioning tool to see the Vista primary and likely the hidden recovery partition totally removed. The XP installer can't do that due to Vista being the newer version of Windows there.

HP's support site would be he place to look for updates on that model for XP before trying this. Those should be seen since Vista is still the new OS out from Microsoft. After verifying those will be available you then simply reformat the Vista primary if not deleted entirely for a new one and install XP onto that.

Where did you get youre information from about that voiding the warranty?

I'm guessing that only applies to HP right? Because with Acer, that's not the case.
 
Besides the manufacturer's warranty on hardwares you have to remember the dealer's own return policy there. If you are not buying from a store with it's own technician to see Windows restored to factory condition they can't restore it once you knock out the recovery information stored in any hidden portion on the drive itself.

You should be able to shrink the XP Primary but note one thing. When Vista is installed after XP it will create a new boot folder with a sub folder you can't remove even when Vista is loaded. I learned that one when first going for the RC1 beta version. It took a reformat of the drive in order to see that gone when XP was installed fresh on a new build here.

One thing to add about the new build here is that both video and sound cards are seeing driver errors coming up out of nowhere when trying to run a few different apps as well as a few games. Vista on the other hasn't seen one problem? I keep XP as the default version since most of the desktop apps fail to work on Vista.
 
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