pre-installed vista home premium

[Bill]

Vista Home Premium came pre-installed on an Acer Aspire L3600 I've bought,
along with Acer material and some other apps of varying usefulness.

I am NOT getting along with this OS at all and am thinking of taking Vista
off and installing XP
on the PC. But having shelled out hard earned bucks for Vista I'm loathe to
bin it for ever, (at least for the time being).

Is it possible to use the factory restore facility Acer provide and to copy
the necessary Acer material to DVD
before uninstalling everything bar Vista; then to copy/burn the OS to an
external drive or DVD and reformat the PC for a XP install, the idea of
course being to have Vista available just in case I want to do the reverse
some time in the future, i.e. reformat and install Vista again?

Regards,

Bill

 

[Malke]

Bill wrote:

(snippage)

Is it possible to use the factory restore facility Acer provide and to
copy the necessary Acer material to DVD
before uninstalling everything bar Vista; then to copy/burn the OS to an
external drive or DVD and reformat the PC for a XP install, the idea of
course being to have Vista available just in case I want to do the reverse
some time in the future, i.e. reformat and install Vista again?

Acer has provided you a way to create physical recovery DVDs. All the Acers
I've seen in my shop have this. Refer to the manual that came with your
computer, or Acer's website, or contact Acer tech support. If you really
think your Acer is different and doesn't have the ability to create
recovery DVDs, contact Acer and order the physical disks. This normally is
quite inexpensive.

You should do the above in any case. As to whether you can put XP on this
machine, see the general information below:

1. Go to the OEM's website and look for XP drivers for your specific model
computer. If there are no XP drivers, then you can't install XP. End of
story. If there are drivers, download them and store on a CD-R or USB
thumbdrive; you'll need them after you install XP.

2. Check with the OEM - either from their tech support website or by calling
them - to see if you will void your warranty if you do this. If you will
void the warranty, you make the decision.

3. If the OEM does support XP on the machine, call them and see if you can
have downgrade rights and have them send you an XP restore disk. This will
be far the easiest and best way of getting XP on the machine.

4. If XP is supported on the machine but the OEM doesn't have an XP restore
disk for you, understand that you'll need to purchase a retail copy of XP
from your favorite online or brick/mortar store.

5. Also understand that you will need to do a clean install of XP so if you
have any data you want, back it up first.

6. If none of the above is applicable to you because you can't run XP on
that machine (see Item #1 above), return the computer and purchase one
running XP instead.

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows - What
you will need on-hand

Malke

 

[Bill]

Not sure I really understand about OEM. Surely any PC can have its hard
drive completely reformatted and then have an OS installed? I currently
have a spare full retail Win XP sitting in its box (and I swear it glows
smugly at me as I discover more and more frustrations of using Vista). Can
I not do this AND have Vista safely available on a dvd or external drive so
that should I wish to reverse the process at some late date I can again
reformat and then install Vista?

I have made backups of Acer's restore utility as they suggest but my
understanding was that the pre-installed Vista is kept permanently on the
hard drive and that running the restore utility is the equivalent to a
glorified restore point operation, every piece of software, including the
OS, going back to the factory fresh condition. The OS never moves from the
HD to the backup does it? If that's correct, a reformat would wipe Vista
permanently - which is not the plan!
Regards,

Bill.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Not sure I really understand about OEM. Surely any PC can have its hard
drive completely reformatted and then have an OS installed? I currently
have a spare full retail Win XP sitting in its box (and I swear it glows
smugly at me as I discover more and more frustrations of using Vista).
Can I not do this AND have Vista safely available on a dvd or external
drive so that should I wish to reverse the process at some late date I can
again reformat and then install Vista?

I have made backups of Acer's restore utility as they suggest but my
understanding was that the pre-installed Vista is kept permanently on the
hard drive and that running the restore utility is the equivalent to a
glorified restore point operation, every piece of software, including the
OS, going back to the factory fresh condition. The OS never moves from
the HD to the backup does it? If that's correct, a reformat would wipe
Vista permanently - which is not the plan!
Regards,

Bill.

I encourage you to do just as you suggest and keep the recovery partition
intact. However, the problem will be that when you install XP you probably
will lose the boot code Acer put there that permits you to start the
recovery by pressing a function key on start up. In other words, if the
F-key used to start recovery is, say, F11, F11 may not work anymore after
you flatten the partition and install XP. That's why you need the recovery
media.

Since XP drivers are on the European Acer support website for your model
just be sure that you contact your seller about whether they will provide
support with XP installed or whether you will have to recover to Vista
before they will assist you with a problem.

You can install XP with your retail copy. As long as you have Vista
recovery media you can go back to Vista later. When you do decide to go
back to Vista the recovery media (simply by the way it works) will wipe out
everything on the drive so you will need to reinstall your apps and restore
your data. Just plan accordingly.

I would use Acronis True Image to image the hard drive now, including the
MBR, and then make another image after you have XP set up. Then it becomes
just a matter of restoring an image to return to one of the configurations.
Since you never know how sound an image is until you need to use it,
however, have a fallback plan.

 

[Malke]

Bill wrote:

Colin has given you the advice you need. I just wanted to add a few things.

Not sure I really understand about OEM. Surely any PC can have its hard
drive completely reformatted and then have an OS installed?

Yes, but if there are no drivers for that specific OS for the hardware in
that computer, you won't have the use of that hardware. Hence my suggestion
to make sure drivers for your desired OS exist *first*. Colin went the
extra mile and found that XP drivers do exist for you. They don't exist for
every model computer that comes with Vista, and that's why I warn about
looking before you leap.

I currently
have a spare full retail Win XP sitting in its box (and I swear it glows
smugly at me as I discover more and more frustrations of using Vista).
Can I not do this AND have Vista safely available on a dvd or external
drive so that should I wish to reverse the process at some late date I can
again reformat and then install Vista.

Yes, that is the point of having made the physical recovery disks; so you
can restore to factory condition. Or use Acronis True Image and image your
entire drive, storing the image on an external hard drive. Regularly
imaging your system is A Good Thing in any case.

I have made backups of Acer's restore utility as they suggest but my
understanding was that the pre-installed Vista is kept permanently on the
hard drive and that running the restore utility is the equivalent to a
glorified restore point operation, every piece of software, including the
OS, going back to the factory fresh condition. The OS never moves from
the
HD to the backup does it? If that's correct, a reformat would wipe Vista
permanently - which is not the plan!

Your understanding is possibly flawed. I say "possibly" because each OEM
(Original Equipment Manufacturer) does things differently. I've run into
machines where not having a special partition on the hard drive makes
restoration with physical media fail. OTOH, with most OEM machines making
the physical restore disks are all you need. After all, if you have to
replace the hard drive there will be nothing on the new one at all.

So I stand by what I told you before: check with Acer about 1) your
warranty; 2) downgrade rights; 3) and get your drivers first.

Malke