New laptop

[psp83]

So i've treated myself to a new Acer laptop today.

Specs:-
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz
250 GB Hard Drive
2GB RAM
Gigabit Lan
Firewire
5 in 1 card reader
HD compatible

Comes with Vista..

The question is, Do i have to buy a new XP pro license to downgrade?

And wheres a good place to get XP ?

[Adam]

If you already own Windows XP Pro you can transfer the license to the new computer. If not, I believe eBuyer still sell it.

[Glenn]

If you already own Windows XP Pro you can transfer the license to the new computer. If not, I believe eBuyer still sell it.

You can transfer the licence if the copy of XP is a retail version, the OEM version is 'locked' to the PC.

[Rik]

What Glenn said, Paul. Make sure you have all the necessary drivers first.

[Ted]

Why not install some sort of boot manager to dual boot XP and Vista. Once all is working ok in XP you can then delete Vista or as its a big disk just keep it.
Probably a good idea to keep it installed, at least until the warranty is up.

[Rik]

Good thinking, Ted.

[psp83]

Cheers, Will an OEM disk from ebuyer do or will i have to get the full version?

I've just looked and some XP disks are more expensive than Vista 

[Rik]

New OEM will be fine, Paul. I paid a 'premium' to have XP on my latest machine - I guess it's Microsoft's way of trying to get us to move.

[psp83]

Novatech does XP or Vista installs for quite cheap prices.. Boss got a new laptop for the new sales bloke and got XP on that for a little fee.

[Rik]

HP and Fujitsu were both offering the choice recently. Clearly, they are responding to their market. (I think Dell do too.)

[MoHux]

If you dual-boot Vista and XP (separate Drives of course), Windows provides the Boot Manager automatically on startup.

Works fine for me!

[Rik]

Can that be done with a partitioned drive, Mo, or do they have to be physically separate?

[Gary]

On apple machines you can dual boot and I think that is on one drive

[Ted]

I was thinking more along the lines of this
or this

Both allow installation of multiple OS's on a single drive.

[Rik]

Do you have a personal favourite, Ted?

[Lance]

My understanding is that you can downgrade from Vista to XP, with XP being licenced via the Vista licence. In other words, you do not need a new, seperate licence.

I'm not sure how you would go about actually getting it installed though. Maybe have a word with support where you are buying from.

[Ted]

Do you have a personal favourite, Ted?

Yep. That would be, Grub or Lilo

[Gary]

Saying that Vista even though slow is safer and with the new drive and quadcore chip technology coming in next year could speed things up, so its swings and roundabouts really, I think next year should see Vista becoming more mainstream anyway, when MS hits the cut off point for XP it will quickly fade, even I'm thinking Vista with IE7 as a safe means of browsing compared with the sieve that is IE7 on xp and firefox which even though a great browser has issues, and I wonder if IE8 which is rumoured to pass the acid test2 and comes into beta soon will be available for XP?

[Inactive]

I bet MS extend the XP Support date Gary, I would guess that the majority of MS users are still using it.

I will not use Vista until I have to.

[Gary]

XP pro support goes to 2014 but there will be no more service packs after SP3, but the very nature of its architecture is out of date security wise so support is no good if its full of holes, Vista may appear slow and clunky compared with XP but you can't deny its  a safer platform. I am an XP user but for safety Vista has it. I have a friend who works for MS in Seattle and they are all switching to Vista, saying that he uses a powermac at home dual booting Vista

[Ann]

My understanding is the same as Lance's.  If you have Vista you can downgrade to XP for free.  Just install it from whatever CD you have, give them a call to get a new activation code (if necessary, but that depends on when you last activated XP). 

[Rik]

Would that work with OEM copies, Ann?

[Simon]

My understanding is that you can downgrade from Vista to XP, with XP being licenced via the Vista licence. In other words, you do not need a new, seperate licence.

I'm not sure how you would go about actually getting it installed though. Maybe have a word with support where you are buying from.

My understanding is the same as Lance's.  If you have Vista you can downgrade to XP for free.  Just install it from whatever CD you have, give them a call to get a new activation code (if necessary, but that depends on when you last activated XP). 

Oh, that's interesting.  So I could just load an XP CD into my laptop and install it over the top of Vista, saving my files and settings, or would I have to format the hard drive?  Vista has a different file set up to XP, so I'm guessing the latter.

[Ann]

I'm pretty sure you'd need a format and reinstall.

It confirms what we said here:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=10930

How do I downgrade?

Install a copy of Windows XP Professional with the product key that came with the copy, and then when you hit the activation screen - which is near the end of the installation process - select the activate by phone option rather than the online method. You'll likely end up talking with a live rep; tell him that you're downgrading from Vista to XP, and give him the Vista product key. The rep is supposed to walk you through the rest.

[Lance]

To add another point, I also understand that you can, at any point in the future, return back to Vista. I'm not 100% on that though.