I want Vista off my laptop and I want to put windows xp on. Vista keeps blocking Windows from loading, and it won't let me take it off. Any suggestions would be great.
You will have to: #1 find out if there are drivers for your laptop available for XP #2 purchase a copy of XP I replaced Vista with XP Pro on a customer's tower, and HP did not support XP for that machine. I had to get the missing drivers from the chipset manufacturer.
Great link ..... thanks. Now find me a link that puts the windows explorer directory structure back to classic and stop the stupid files in the directory that are shortcuts that can't be clicked on!!!!!!:lol::lol: If Microsoft keeps building software for idiots, all we are going to have in the future are idiots. I'm the human, I'll tell the PC what to do, not the other way around.
Go get a Mac. I just dumped my desktop and laptop after being a pc user for over 15yrs for Mac. Best move I ever did. (all your microsoft files will transfer) Keep the vista on the laptop and sell it.
Are you trying to load it from within windows or booting from cd at start up? I'd shut down the computer and boot to cd to load it. Make sure you have the xp drivers on hand before doing so though.
I don't want to dump vista until I know for sure xp will work. Vista will not read the xp disc for some reason. I am afraid if I dump vista and then xp doesn't work I am screwed. The geek squad wants to much money to do it so they are out.
Well see if you can find the drivers for xp and have those ready on a disc or thumb drive. Then you can load xp outside of vista.
I don't mean xp on the thumb drive. I mean the xp DRIVERS. Once you have those you'll know for sure xp will work on the lappy. Then you can shut down the puter, restart it with the disc in, and load xp without ever going into vista. After it's installed you can use the thumb drive or cd to load your drivers.
If you're having trouble getting this done, and don't want to pay the $130 minimum for Geek Squad to do the install, bring it by my house. As long as you have a licensed copy of XP and I can get the drivers (I would need the manufacturer and model #), I will do the install for far less than GS.
Here's the deal. Vista and XP combat each other. (I think it's intentional by Microsoft to shove this crappy software down our throats) Removing Vista completely may be a mistake. Vista will have the drivers you need and XP can be directed toi those directories to find them. Load them both and choose from a boot menu when the PC starts from now on. You'll have to have the original Vista CD that came with the unit. If it did'nt come with a CD, hopefully you made a restore disk before you started. And, you've backed up you personal stuff. You have to use the DISKPART on the Vista CD to shrink the Vista partition on the hard disk and create enough space for an installation of Vista & XP. Remember Vista is still on there in this process. Then install XP, repair the Vista bootloader which will be overwritten during the XP installation, and then use the EasyBCD utility to configure Vista's bootloader to boot the XP partition. I know, that last paragraph sounds like 2 geeks at a frat party, but it's not that difficult. The problem here is that Bill Gates has hijacked the intial PC boot with his new garbage he calls Vista. But in his defense America has demanded an idiot proof OS with 10 million bells and whistles, and that's what they got. Google "How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first)", read, then read some more, then read some more. Click all the links, cut and paste the data to a word document, print it and give it a shot.
Thank you everyone for your help, but last night my laptop took a wrong turn. I hit the wrong button and now have lost everything. My dh has a friend and he is taking my laptop to him this weekend. I have always been told that I can't really destroy a computer, here is a great example. I am back on my desk top.
