33 replies to this topic

[palango]

I am debating downgrading the laptop to XP from the current VISTA. The reason for this madness??? My wife's work can only grant VPN access via XP and is not compatable with VISTA.

I know there are some serioyus techies out here. What are the potential risks or downside to downgrading to XP?

I know windows 7 is coming out also and the Mrs work is about 1-2 years away to upgrade to Vista. So, this switch to XP may be a temporary one.

[mylo]

Scrap Vista. Virtualize 7 and XP.

[Darthvader]

I am debating downgrading the laptop to XP from the current VISTA. The reason for this madness??? My wife's work can only grant VPN access via XP and is not compatable with VISTA.

I know there are some serioyus techies out here. What are the potential risks or downside to downgrading to XP?

I know windows 7 is coming out also and the Mrs work is about 1-2 years away to upgrade to Vista. So, this switch to XP may be a temporary one.

Not sure I'd call going back to XP a downgrade. I also can never see the day any serious business or corporate environment would switch to Vista, ever. It just won't happen.

Win7 will be a huge winner but if you need to go back to XP for a while I see little or no risk at all in doing this. Back-up all the data of course!

[dlutz]

Agree with Mylo.

Just remember that newer machine's may not be able to downgrade to XP. If the Bios doesn't allow you to disable SATA, you might have a little work cut out for you.

Otherwise lobby the wife's work to upgrade to something compatible with 7, it's by far the best windows OS I've used.

[palango]

Great points. XP it is. Now I have my fingers crossed because I am not sure if our Costco HP laptop may not allow us to downgrade as dlutz mentions above. Time to call Costco Conceirge services. It beats reading the darn manual.

[dlutz]

If it's a newer HP, you might have some trouble. Check your BIOS settings and see if it will let you disable SATA Support. If so, you should be good to go, otherwise it's a can of worms you are going to be opening...

[Darthvader]

Agree with Mylo.

Just remember that newer machine's may not be able to downgrade to XP. If the Bios doesn't allow you to disable SATA, you might have a little work cut out for you.

Otherwise lobby the wife's work to upgrade to something compatible with 7, it's by far the best windows OS I've used.

What new machine won't XP run on? Dell and everybody else still delivers laptops today with XP. I don't get what you are saying.

And they only may have BIOS support for SATA drives? I doubt that, can you explain?

[dlutz]

What new machine won't XP run on? Dell and everybody else still delivers laptops today with XP. I don't get what you are saying.

And they only may have BIOS support for SATA drives? I doubt that, can you explain?

I know HP has a deal with Microsoft or something. They still sell the XP downgrade option on their business lines for obvious reasons, but only sell Vista on their consumer lines.

Early in the game HP BIOS (I think they still use Phoenix) had the option to diable/enable native SATA support. As of a couple of years ago, that option is no longer available which makes it difficult to do a fresh install of XP which doesn't have the SATA drivers.

There are work-arounds but from what I've read, they're hit or miss.

[Dave Burrell]

I am debating downgrading the laptop to XP from the current VISTA. The reason for this madness??? My wife's work can only grant VPN access via XP and is not compatable with VISTA.

I know there are some serioyus techies out here. What are the potential risks or downside to downgrading to XP?

I know windows 7 is coming out also and the Mrs work is about 1-2 years away to upgrade to Vista. So, this switch to XP may be a temporary one.

Put on Ubuntu, then virtualize both Win 7 and XP to play with both

if you have to choose one, go with XP... and consider it an upgrade from Vista- no downsides from going to xp, other then your system running better and being more stable

[GFFmatt]

I have no problem with XP.

BUT...I have Vista Ultimate 64 running on my editing rig and it's awesome. I've had no problems and it looks great. Do I just not experience the bad points in Vista because my actions are limited to filmmaking activities?

I just run Adobe Master Suite, Sony Vegas, Office 07 and a couple of other related things on an i7 with 12GB of DDR3. If that makes a difference.

[uberman]

Windows XP is the best Windows operating system on the market today (7 isn't quite out yet.)

I still recommend Xp to my clients, and still run XP on my mac with boot camp (rather than the RC of 7.)

You shouldn't have any problems with XP. It's a highly mature operating system. It will last you well into a year after Windows 7 comes out (and software developers stop supporting XP,) which they will do.

[palango]

The verdict is in and IT folks have overwhelmingly favored my downgrading to XP. Now the question is do I go to Best Buy or Frys to purchase XP? Is it worth to dish out a few hundred bux only to upgrade again to Windows 7 in 18-24 months?

[Dave Burrell]

The verdict is in and IT folks have overwhelmingly favored my downgrading to XP. Now the question is do I go to Best Buy or Frys to purchase XP? Is it worth to dish out a few hundred bux only to upgrade again to Windows 7 in 18-24 months?

too bad its not free like Ubuntu is... damn shame to have to waste a few hundred on it when 7 will be the way to go pretty soon

[folsom500]

too bad its not free like Ubuntu is... damn shame to have to waste a few hundred on it when 7 will be the way to go pretty soon

I have one of my laptops with Vista- Can I convert to Ubuntu on it and not loose my data ? Also will other programs such as Picasa , and google chrome, etc work in it ?

[palango]

This ubuntu thing has been suggested to me by vrious people, but that sounds like more complex than I can handle.