The step Microsoft is taking is probably going to fall back on them. XP is probably the most bought and shipped OS made by Microsoft. I, myself, are using it right now. It's has been pretty stable on me, it hasn't crashed too often. But my computer probably couldn't bear with Vista, it's already two years old. Three years ago I was still using windows 98, whilst others had XP. It wasn't very comfortable to find out that Microsoft stopped giving support to Windows 98. I think Microsoft's ideas aren't acceptable! I'm thinking about converting to Linux if it gets worse...

I said in another thread that I was not going to switch from XP to Vista. Indeed, to me, Vista is not yet really "done" and XP is still much more powerful ! And yeah, when I heard that, I was quite shocked about it. Here in France, you can still chose between XP and Vista but people tend to get Vista easily... Maybe because they don't really know that XP is better. It's quite logical to me since "normally", when another version of a software is released, it's meant to be better. To me, that's not actually the case with Vista... I hope they will finally change their minds about that...

I noticed that Vista is now horribly bad - microsoft is getting worse! - but i want a laptop, preferably from DELL. But DELL does not sell Windows XP anymore - which is a total con really, because there are some people who ACTUALLY WANT TO BUY IT.
They do actually sell xp (disks) but there computers are not being sold with it preinstalled. Just vista.

And i had a look and Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2 = £217.40
Windows XP Professional w/SP2 = £316.74

WHY??? I just want a computer with PREINSTALLED XP - NOT VISTA! And on the "customise" for your pc it only asks you for "Windows Vista Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate" - Looking at it, XP is more expensive than Vista!!

Thats not on

You CAN wipe out and install XP onto any machine.

Legally, I believe that one copy of a "normally purchased" copy of Windows can be installed on one PC at any one time, so if you have an older computer that you're doing away with, LEGALLY you can wipe XP off of that machine and use the same copy of Windows to be installed onto your new machine.

Check out the support page for the Dell model in question for XP drivers. Also, look around for driver support on manufacturer pages.

I actually did the favor of wiping Vista off of a friend's new HP Compaq in favor for XP with not too much hassle. Some drivers will be a pain in the rear end... it's almost inevitable, but it is possible. (In her case, it was the network card that wasn't wanting to cooperate after XP was installed. After some intense Google research and 2 hours of unexpected time spent on the matter, I got it to work.)

There is a way around this. Buy it with Vista installed on the PC you want, whatever the cheapest one is. When the laptop arrives, get out your video camera or digital camera and record the first time you turn the laptop on. Most importantly, provide graphical evidence of you refusing the EULA during the install. You'll notice, if you read the EULA, that you have the right to return Vista to the OEM if you disagree with the EULA. They also have to refund you the value of Vista. It might take a little while, and you'll have to send back any Vista CDs they send, but you should get a cheque in the post for the value of Vista. If you want, speak to Dell first and check. If they say they won't refund you for Vista demand to know why.

I'll suggest you buy the Laptop with Linux/Dos(if possible, I doubt if Dell offers any of these). and then Install XP. Because most of the system that come with DOS/Linux would be having harware 100% compatible with Windows XP. and then you can format (or make a partition) and install XP. This way, you won't end up spending unnecessary money and you'll get an XP laptop.

or

If you are sticking with the Vista-DELL combination, then collect the software drivers for the Devices before you wipe out OS. PM me if you get stuck with any of the drivers. I'll help you find it

P.S. Vista is not that bad. I've tried Vista Ultimate on a friends comp, though I love my system with XP. I feel its much faster but then I can't play games in all their glory because theres no DX10 for XP.

Wow! I honestly had no idea that you could do that! I would have had to seriously consider doing that had I known about it; however, it is too late for me as I had already turned Vista on. Oh well, I boot into it when I need stability on my computer (my XP drivers aren't the best, I haven't put enough effort in it and ubuntu doesn't seem to work seemlessly all the time either).

As for the question, definitly go with what everyone else said. It's pretty easy to install XP over Vista, that's what I did, then I put vista on another partition along with ubuntu 8.04 beta. There are tons of tutorials on google about doing this, so it really shouldn't be all that difficult.

Either your looking at the wrong website or your not searching good enough, Dell still sells computers with XP installed; XPS M1730, Inspiron 1520 are laptops that can have XP installed and as for Dell Desktops Inspiron 530s, Inspiron 530, XPS 210, XPS 630. I know alienware computers have XP as an option for there laptops and desktops, of course plan to spend $3-4000 for one of their computers though. In my honest opinion if you don't use vista on a regular basis it seems to be a great system in the sense that I don't do anything with it as all my software is on this computer, and I haven't had any hardware problems either, the boot is lagging a bit but other then that it runs fine for me.




Correct you only can install one copy of XP per system, or rather per serial key for full activation. So yeah you would need to wipe out XP from one computer in order to use it on another. You have to remember though that if you buy a company brand computer that if you run another operating system besides the one that comes pre-installed you could void warranties and stuff like that.




that is a bit sneaky, but I don't see people putting the effort into doing this though, although if you had vista ultimate you could get like 2 copies of XP if you search for the best prices.




I know Dell does linux preinstalls but not aware of linux/dos combinations, but I doubt no pc company is going to spend the resources to to have dual boot pre-installs though.




If your computer is good enough to sustain a dual boot, then just dual boot another operating system and don't use vista except to update it and maybe make software comparisons.

I have a fun anagram to share:

Viruses
Intruders
Spyware
Trojans
Adware

I dunno, I saw it in a colorful image a while ago. I throw it up on the chalkboard at school sometimes.

And I pose this reponse to you...
How Many Are You Running?

I've made the switch to vista a while back and honestly, I have found it troublefree. It crashes far less often than xp, I have had no compatability problems with programs. Granted I have a fast computer, so speed is not an issue. I am also running Ultimate on an old laptop of mine, because I tried to use XP, and the drivers would not work and recognise the hard drive array. All I could do was install vista, because it picked them up right away from a default install. Has a lot of compatability drivers built in. The old laptop was fairly slow on XP, and is fairly slow on vista. I have not noticed a performance loss. In fact it seems more stable now.

Now I'm not condoning either way, but if you're computer is reasonably fast, just switch, you will forget you're running windows after a while.
If you want to know whether a machine of yours is fairly fast, just send me a PM with the specs and I'll try to help you out *Just my two cents everyone*

Oh and if you want vista for DX10, its not worth it. DX10 barely makes a difference, and microsoft have announced the DX10 drivers will be released soon for XP.

This post has been edited by Jimmy: Apr 26 2008, 10:30 PM