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advice doin correct XP over Vista install
Simply, I am going to install XP home, on my machine.
The motherboard can only handle 2 Gigs of RAM, and I have that in it.
It came with Vista. and I have installed vista before twice, yet Ive been told, that when installing XP, on a machine that has had Vista, it must be done in a certain fashion, to make sure none of the Vista, remains.
Im doing this along with a processor upgrade to get a low dollar performance upgrade on an old machine.
Thankyou for your help.
Comments
I think your concern only applies if you're setting it up to dual boot XP and Vista as the XP boot loader won't recognize the Vista partition and you would need to install Vista after XP or restore the Vista boot loader for dual booting.
For single booting, if you just install XP over top of the Vista installation, same partition and everything, it should wipe out the Vista boot loader and not care that Vista is on there. Rarely it *may* install to a folder called Windows.0 instead of just Windows but usually it will just overwrite the old Windows folder.
Just completely format the drive when you are asked to do so. The XP install is a little...crude...but its self explanatory. Put the disk in, make sure your computer has it set to do the boot order from the cd (can change this in your bios) the disk will load and youll get to a screen that asks if you want to create a new partition, which you would do if you wanted to dual boot, or ask if you want to just format the current partition which will erase any and all data on the hard drive, chose this one, let it finish, comp will restart and you will go ahead with the xp install.
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
Thank you, the dual boot is not the option I want. I wish to have no trace of Vista on my drive, as I play BF 1942, dc & dcf.
Vista makes it possible to load only a potion of the BF games I play, and I miss secret weapons.
The newer games Ive played, and they just dont interest me any more. As I mentioned having the 2 gig limit, on ram, from what Ive read, limits my performance on Vista, but not so with XP.
Other concerns I have are, with a processor change coming, would this be wiser to do before, or after, the change of the O.S.? To my thinking it doesnt matter, but as Ive never replaced a processor, I am going into new territory. At any rate I will post a new advice thread about processor changes, when it arives, just concerned that I dont inadvertantly do something out of sync, by changing the OS prior to that hardware upgrade.
And does XP have any problem recognizing and internet connect, automatically. A friend of mine ran into this problem with an XP pro install, but was able to use a wireless device, which came with its own software. I dont wish to go wireless, however, Ive never heard of this problem happening with XP home, and I know it doesnt occur, or hasnt to me , with Vista installs.
If you are just changing the processor and not the motherboard you can switch to XP before or after no probs.
For removing any traces of Vista a clean format is the best option, but not necessary if you don't want to backup all your data. An install over top of Vista is still fresh as far as XP is concerned, even if there were left over Vista files on your HD it doesn't affect XP in the slightest because it isn't looking for them so it's just a tidyness and disk space concern.
I used to reformat on occasion just to clean up and start fresh, I even created an OS partition, about 35GB, so I can easily reformat just the OS - but it hardly seems worth the trouble anymore.
For your internet connection, I'll assume you're using the onboard LAN to hook up to cable/DSL.. In this case you should make sure you either have the mobo driver CD or download the XP LAN driver from the mobo's website before you switch over. XP often doesn't recognize the onboard LAN so you won't be able to get online without the driver for it. As long as you have that driver you can get online to get the rest of the mobo/video/audio drivers.