de installation of Vista

[Guest]

As lsick as it is, Vista and Office2007 were not stbale enough for a business
critical laptop. I tried to re-install XPPro, but was not allowed by the
installer. said installing an older OS is not possible.
HOw do I put my laptop back to a XP/2003 system?
Thx

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

You were instructed on the GetReady page not to install Vista beta 2 on a
production or primary home computer.

You have to boot with an XP cd or use the manufacturer's recovery software
to get back to XP. It will require a clean installation of XP. This was
also noted on the GetReady page.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

There is no downgrade path from Vista to Windows XP.
Instead you need to perform a Clean Install of Windows XP:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/cleanxp.htm
Back-up all important data since the Clean Install will destroy all data.

Also the Vista Beta as well as any Beta from any source should NEVER be
installed on a "business critical" computer of any kind.
The nature of Beta generally makes this a bad idea.

 

[Gordon]

As lsick as it is, Vista and Office2007 were not stbale enough for a
business
critical laptop. I tried to re-install XPPro, but was not allowed by the
installer. said installing an older OS is not possible.
HOw do I put my laptop back to a XP/2003 system?
Thx

....I'm afraid you're gonna have to format and do a clean install. In the
future never install a beta for mission critical stuff. Make it a dual boot
situation...

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I would not even use a dual boot scenario on a production computer. I would
use a separate test box. The GetReady page does not even mention separate
partitions. It just warns not to install on a production or primary home
computer. Period.

It is possible to lose the production partition while installing a beta OS.
I have lost XP Pro x64 on my test box at least once while installing a Vista
build.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Can you still boot to any of the installed operating systems? You may have
to save what data you can to CD/DVD or external drive and perform either a
clean install of XP deleting the Vista partition. If your laptop came with a
restore to factory CD/DVD set you'll have to use that. Note both procedures
will erase what's on you laptop so make sure you have any data backed up.