downgrading windows on a laptop, possible?

[McMadman]

I know most of you will think this is a stupid idea (personally I think so too) but my friend really hates XP on a new laptop, not sure of the exact reasons though. She actually wants to install ME on it, I don't think this even has a good chance of working, due to the proprietary nature of laptops (its a fairly modern laptop, I can't remember the model#)

I know it would require a reformat to get back to the fat32 system, I could also possibly suggest a copy of 2k if that may work better, from what I've heard the main complaints about xp is its "slow" so it could be a number of things

any suggestions? i won't even see said laptop until either this weekend, or early next week

 

[Paperlantern]

There really should be no reason to downgrade. its not difficult though. but if he has a new laptop, it probably has 1,458,927 things on it that dont need to be, hence why its running slow. If you get to look at it, i would suggest seeing how many things are in his start up, in addition to how many things are also SET to come on when windows starts (such as antivirus, chat programs, utilities etc) chances are its "slow" because its doing WAY too much. if thats not the case, allthough ive never seen that happen, generally when a customer says "my system is slow" they have too much running in the tray, one lady said her system was slow, so i said, well lemme take a look, i turned it on, and i kid you not, her tray icons went clear over the the start menu, it took me a half hour to clean it all up, then i told her to do a defrag etc, and she should double her speed. SO take a look in there see whats going on, maybe he wont need to downgrade, alot off ppl "hate XP" but as soon as they see why it does certain things they LOVE it, i know i do =)

 

[Viper0329]

Is it the look he doesn't like? If it is, just set everything to Classic Windows.

 

[dannybek]

Originally posted by: McMadman
I know most of you will think this is a stupid idea (personally I think so too) but my friend really hates XP on a new laptop, not sure of the exact reasons though. She actually wants to install ME on it, I don't think this even has a good chance of working, due to the proprietary nature of laptops (its a fairly modern laptop, I can't remember the model#)

I know it would require a reformat to get back to the fat32 system, I could also possibly suggest a copy of 2k if that may work better, from what I've heard the main complaints about xp is its "slow" so it could be a number of things

any suggestions? i won't even see said laptop until either this weekend, or early next week

I think its a she.

 

[McMadman]

It may just be the standard services that are still running, I know that xp also has a lot of "online features" which probably coulpd be slowing things down too. there is no internet access at all

It might be the look, or possibly some incompatability, I haven't gotten much of an answer other than "I hate xp"
although she also loves the version that 99% of people agree is a total POS (ME)

As I previously stated, I'll see the system soon enough, it may just be a few things that need to be removed.

 

[JWade]

On my compaq 700US i downgraded to win98 from winxp home. Everything worked good except my DVD playing. under both win98 and winME watching DVD movies was very choppy. Under XP it was smooth as smooth can be. Since the wife likes to watch DVds in bed i had to put xp back onto it. Just some thought to give if you try the downgrade route (by downgrade i mean reformat and reinstall new OS). The drivers for my laptop video were only "certified" for xp, which may have had something to do with crappy playback under 98 and ME.

 

[McMadman]

That was discussed a couple days back, it'll still be an option, but more of a last ditch option.

I know that theres one piece of software that needs to be made to work, but from the sound of the problem when running it, it seems that it'd be as simple as installing the VB runtimes, or at the very least playing around with compatability settings.

Assuming that the xp setup is "standard" (standard install and not a recovery cd) a dualboot could be setup. Even if it dosen't run, I could probably find someone with a standard copy of xp home and use the cdkey that is currently on the laptop (or the COA assuming that the cdkey is on the back of the laptop like some models I've seen.)

 

[jschuk]

Check out this site for elimanating uneccessary programs at startup. I can't say I like ME. I would personally choose 98SE over any other 9x OS. As mentioned above, try tweaking the OS. Just do a search for "XP tweaks/tweaking" and I am sure you will find some good information. My wife's PII423MHz/256MB laptop runs great with XP.

To use the COA on the laptop, you will need to obtain a OEM XP Home disc, not the retail discs that most people would have. If you load a 9x OS on there, make sure that you will be able to load all the drivers on there before wiping out the OS. 9x support is starting to become less common for modern laptops.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: jschuk
Check out this site for elimanating uneccessary programs at startup. I can't say I like ME. I would personally choose 98SE over any other 9x OS. As mentioned above, try tweaking the OS. Just do a search for "XP tweaks/tweaking" and I am sure you will find some good information. My wife's PII423MHz/256MB laptop runs great with XP.

To use the COA on the laptop, you will need to obtain a OEM XP Home disc, not the retail discs that most people would have. If you load a 9x OS on there, make sure that you will be able to load all the drivers on there before wiping out the OS. 9x support is starting to become less common for modern laptops.

I'll also say to take 98SE over ME. I can't see why you'd want to get rid of anything except maybe a Win95 alpha version to switch to WinME. But anyway...
How much RAM does the laptop have, McMadman? WinXP loves RAM, and lots of it. My collection of background utilities (MBM5, some Norton Systemworks stuff, and a few other small utilities), and open programs (IE6, 3 windows, Xteq setup, and Eudora) currently take up 350MB of RAM. I've got a laptop on the way with 128MB; I've already ordered a 256MB stick for it.

 

[McMadman]

Well, now I've actually used the laptop, I did install sp1 (it took about 5 minutes to download, and 2-3 hours to install!) The laptop is a HP ze5185.

There wasn't too much junk loaded, but didn't fully get around to working with the services and further tweaks to get it running smoothly, but it is running a bit better and hopefully she'll adjust to xp,