Downgrade from Windows Vista Business to XP Pro

[Wendy10]

I purchased a new Dell with Windows Vista Business and could not choose XP
Pro which I truly needed. I've used Vista for 5 months and just found out I
can downgrade to XP Pro. What do I need to do with the documents I've
created and all the e-mail messages I have on Outlook? Will this all be lost
when I downgrade?

 

[XS11E]

I purchased a new Dell with Windows Vista Business and could not
choose XP Pro which I truly needed. I've used Vista for 5 months
and just found out I can downgrade to XP Pro. What do I need to
do with the documents I've created and all the e-mail messages I
have on Outlook? Will this all be lost when I downgrade?

That's up to you. You'll have to do a clean install of XP Pro which
means formatting the Vista partition but you can save your documents
and email messages in several different ways.

You can backup your files to a CD/DVD, Flash Drive or removable
harddrive or you can save your files to a different partition on your
existing hard drive, if you have only one partition you can use Vista's
disk management to shrink the C: partition and create a new partition
in the recovered space and save to that.

 

[Wendy10]

I think I better do some reading, I don't know what a partition is at this
time.

 

[XS11E]

I think I better do some reading, I don't know what a partition is
at this time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(computing)

Simplified, a hard drive can be made to act like two or more smaller
harddrives, each with it's own label.

Suppose your harddrive is 250 Gigabytes in size, when you got your
computer, your harddrive was probably set up as a single 250Gb
partition called Drive C: and your CD ROM drive was probably called
Drive D: but you can create partitions to make it appear to be two
125Gb drives called C: and D: by partitioning the drive and renaming
the CD ROM drive as drive E:

Opening Windows Explorer now may show:

Computer
Local Disk (C
CD Drive (D

If you partitioned the drive to have two partitions you'd see:

Computer
Local Disk (C
Local Disk (D
CD Drive (E

Your computer now thinks you have two hard drives. Now you can save
your files, email, etc. on Drive D: and then format drive C: to install
Windows XP w/o disturbing the saved stuff on drive D:

Does that help or is it just confusing?

 

[Wendy10]

It does help, I just have to do some investigating to find out how to do all
this. Tell me though, will it be worth all the effort to downgrade?

 

[XS11E]

It does help, I just have to do some investigating to find out how
to do all this. Tell me though, will it be worth all the effort
to downgrade?

I can only offer my opinion. I think the time would be better spent
getting used to Vista. In your original post you talked about
documents you'd created and email you'd saved so it seems you have been
using it and using it with some degree of success.

You also said you "truly needed XP" but you didn't say why so maybe
there's some way to solve whatever problem you're having with Vista?
Maybe that's the easiest solution for you?

 

[Wendy10]

Several of the programs I was using are not compatible with Vista, which I
didn't know until too late. Fortunately I still have access to my old
computer and can use it when I need the programs. We purchased this bigger
computer to help make my job easier and faster, but we find ourselves in a
Catch 22 situation; my Vista is MUCH faster but I can't use it for everything
I need. As far as "problems" with Vista itself, I have none, I think it's a
good OS, just with a few quirks!

 

[XS11E]

Several of the programs I was using are not compatible with Vista,
which I didn't know until too late.

Can you get updates from the people who wrote the programs?

Possibly if you'll list the programs someone here might know of a fix
or workaround or upgrade, it's worth a try.

 

[Wendy10]

Always worth the try! One program is our surveillance system, I've spoken to
the tech who tells me they have yet to upgrade to be compatible, the other is
PC anywhere. These are two of the biggest (and slowest) programs on my on PC
which is why I convinced my boss I needed a bigger computer...Oops.

 

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

will it be worth all the effort to downgrade?

Most likely. Your comfort and familiarity as a user is ultimately
the most important factor in enjoying your computer experience.

There are instructions on the MS web site for backing up your
documents, message store, and address book. This can be
done to a second hard drive or a removable USB jump drive.

 

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

Several of the programs I was using are not compatible with Vista, which I
didn't know until too late. Fortunately I still have access to my old
computer and can use it when I need the programs. We purchased this bigger
computer to help make my job easier and faster, but we find ourselves in a
Catch 22 situation; my Vista is MUCH faster but I can't use it for everything
I need. As far as "problems" with Vista itself, I have none, I think it's a
good OS, just with a few quirks!

It sounds to me as if you need to do a simple clean-up and optimization of
your XP box. My experience has been that a naked XP install is faster than
a naked VISTA Premium install.... slow down's come from bloated software
additions and less than optimal personal maintenance.

DM

 

[Wendy10]

Thank you all for your help. I believe this is something I need to seriously
consider before making any decision.

 

[XS11E]

Always worth the try! One program is our surveillance system,
I've spoken to the tech who tells me they have yet to upgrade to
be compatible,

Can they give you a date when this will be done? Keep pushing them, it may help.

the other is PC anywhere.

PCAnywhere is Vista compatible, you probably need to upgrade to a newer version.

http://www.symantec.com/norton/products/overview.jsp?pcid=pf&pvid=pca121

 

[Biologist]

You should be ashamed! The problem is not a matter of "getting used to
Vista"...the problem is the inferior product that Vista is and it's
all-around incompatibility issues. Microsoft should also be ashamed!!! I have
Vista on the new PC that I have just purchased and I plan to reformat to get
rid of it.

 

[XS11E]

You should be ashamed! The problem is not a matter of "getting
used to Vista"...the problem is the inferior product that Vista is
and it's all-around incompatibility issues. Microsoft should also
be ashamed!!! I have Vista on the new PC that I have just
purchased and I plan to reformat to get rid of it.

You should be ashamed of posting your incompetency to a public news
group. There are no incompatibility issues to those who do the
homework and proceed intelligently.

 

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

You should be ashamed of posting your incompetency to a public news
group. There are no incompatibility issues to those who do the
homework and proceed intelligently.

IOW, if you don't mind buying almost all new software and hardware,
never changing the configuration, and don't care that VISTA can report
a perfect profile of the end user and his PC content (to mention a couple
of things), then it's just fine.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

IOW, if you don't mind buying almost all new software and hardware,...

IOW, doing *exactly* the same things that end-users have *always*
needed to do when purchasing a new operating system: either checking for
compatibility of existing hardware and software and upgrading if the new
OS is still desired, or waiting to get the new OS on a new computer.
Nothing has changed here, whatsoever.

... never changing the configuration, ...

That, of course, is either a blatant and deliberate falsehood, or
you're far too unknowledgeable ab out Vista - and computers in general -
to be offering any sort of technical advice to anyone.

.... and don't care that VISTA can report
a perfect profile of the end user and his PC content (to mention a couple
of things), then it's just fine.

A completely meaningless phrase (even though the words are from the
English language), unless you're trying to pass off some sort of
paranoid delusion.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot