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Best Option for Installing XP Professional on a Dell Vista Laptop

J

jgar

Junior Member
What is my best option for installing XP Professional on a Vista Laptop. Is there a good source out there to buy this?

I didn't know if I could use the OEM version or would have to install the full retail version.
 
I would think that if you actually have an OEM version of XP for that notebook, then you should install that. If it is XP Home, then a guess is that a retail version of XP Pro should be able to accomplish the desired upgrade.
 
your machine has the SLP key for XP. just buy or borrow from the same machine the disks. basically the dell oem XP for that machine will look for "DELL" in plain text for XP activation.

For legal reasons - you will have to have had VISTA BUSINESS or VISTA ULTIMATE OEM to downgrade to XP PRO.

Ebay sells tons of replacement restore discs if you can't get them anymore from DELL. or can't wait. I suspect you could find the discs - but i warn you from downloading from unknown sources (dell.com is the only one that would provide this disc over the net). If you hit up a torrent for that model restore CD/DVD and get a virus - you have been warned.

C1 is right. Downgrade rights generally were only for PRO versions not home but doubt anyone cares anymore.
 
Also, look for XP Drivers before you install it. I tried downgrading to XP on my vista laptop and dell had NO drivers for XP. I tried everything I could think of and I ended up with a video driver and a LAN driver ,no Wireless. So I went back to Vista.
 
Dryfter said:
Also, look for XP Drivers before you install it. I tried downgrading to XP on my vista laptop and dell had NO drivers for XP. I tried everything I could think of and I ended up with a video driver and a LAN driver ,no Wireless. So I went back to Vista.
Click to expand...

On the driver page, there is a drop down menu where you can select the XP operating system... I'm reloading my old Dell desktop with a clean XP install right now and am doing the same thing.

Your Dell probably has an express service code, sometimes you can use that to pull up the appropriate drivers, but, again, you have to select your operating system first... I didn't realize that and I downloaded a bunch of Vista drivers the first time... 😵
 
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