downgrade to XP Pro from Vista

[John D Myers]

My Acer laptop came installed with XP pro, I upgraded to Vista Home premium.
I now want to go back to XP pro. But my XP pro Genuine advantage CD i bought
does not give me the option to install XP pro. (its greyed out) Any one got
any idea why?
Or how do i set up Vista to boot from XP CD?

Thanks in advance.
John M

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi John,

Your last line is the manner you need to go. You can't install XP over
Vista, you have to remove the Vista installation volume and create a new
one, format it and then install XP. This is done at the initial stage of
setup. To boot from the XP CD requires that you set the system BIOS (not
Vista) boot order to the optical drive first. The BIOS is accessible by
pressing the appropriate key or key combination as indicated "press <key> to
enter setup" when the system is first started.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Not Me]

If your CD is starting from within Vista, you won't have the option to
install XP, you have to boot from the CD.
After POST, but before XP loads, you need to hit whatever key Acer uses to
access setup/BIOS.
Depending on the manufacturer, it can be DEL, F2, F10, whatever shows on the
POST screen.
In the 'boot order' section of the BIOS, set the CD/DVD drive as the first
boot device.
Save and exit BIOS.
Once the machine boots from the CD, you should have the option to install
XP.
If that fails....
If you have the original restore disk for the laptop, you should be able to
restore the system to the factory state using it.
If not, you may need to get one from Acer.

 

[Mick Murphy]

Hit the "Delete" key as you power up to go into Bios, or the F12 to go into
the boot menu. Set it to boot from the CD/DVD Drive with the XP disk in it.

Once that happens, follow instructions: delete existing vista partition,
format a partition, install XP