[crjdriver]

Some of you may have purchased systems that came with vista pre-installed. If you want to run an older operating system such as XP or win2k [and you do not want to have to reinstall vista] then you might be interested in this guide. Note to do this you must have a MS vista install DVD; a recovery type disk is not going to work.

I have just finished installing a dual boot; win2k and vista where vista was installed first and win2k added after. This is quite easy and does not require any third party app.

Prior to beginning this task, make a complete backup of your system. I use and recommend Acronis True Image for this task. In addition do make sure that win2k/xp has drivers available for your hardware. This is especially important if you have a laptop. If there are no drivers available, you are wasting your time.

To start we need to create a partition in which to install win2k/xp. Open disk management; start>run and type in “diskmgmt.msc” without quotes. Hit enter; this brings up disk management. Right click your drive and choose shrink from the menu. I would make the partition approx 10gig for win2k and 15-20gig for XP [depending on how much software you are going to install] Once you have completed the shrink process, create a partition and format with NTFS. [Using disk management] At this point your new partition has been assigned the next available drive letter. I like drive letters in order so I use disk management to reassign the drive letters for the optical drives so I can assign drive letters sequentially for the hard disk partitions. With the new partition now labeled D and optical drives following, it is now time to install our older operating system.

Boot with your win2k/xp CD [CD set as first boot device in the bios] Select the “D” partition as to where you will install. I will not go into detailed instructions as to how to install win2k or xp; there are many guides on the web for this purpose. Complete the install. At this point, vista will no longer boot; we need to repair the boot sector and vista’s boot configuration files. Boot into win2k/xp and open a command prompt; start>run>cmd and hit enter. We will now use Bootsect.exe to restore the Vista MBR and the boot code that transfers control to the Windows Boot mgr app.

Insert your vista dvd into the drive; cancel window that may autorun. Type this in
Drive:\boot\Bootset.exe /NT60 All hit enter
In this command drive is the drive where the Vista install DVD is located.

Next we will use Bcdedit.exe to manually create an entry for win2k/xp

Type Drive:\windows\system32\Bcdedit /create {ntldr} –d “Description for earlier Windows” hit enter.
Note in this command drive is where you have vista installed; most likely “C” The description can be whatever you want ie Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc.

We now will set the active partition. Note in this command drive is the letter for the active partition; again most likely “C”
Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=X: hit enter Again this is most likely C not X.

Drive:\windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr hit enter
Drive:\windows\system32\Bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} –addlast hit enter.

Now restart the system and you will have the vista boot menu giving you the choice of operating systems.

[rustin01]

Hi I have followed the instructions you have given. It has unfortunately not worked for me as the windows xp install does not complete. This is what happens. The process goes as far as selecting the drive to install xp on. Once selected the files copy onto the drive. On rebooting the machine hangs at the point of either booting off the cdrom or harddrive. I have tried various drives but the same problem occurs. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

[yuzna]

Thanks I got this to work really well, I just had some problems due to Vista being 64-bit and XP being 32-bit so I couldn't change settings under XP. Is there anyway to change the name of the boot options, they are not called "Vista Ultimate recovered" and "Earlier version of windows"

Edit: Nevermind, figured it out

[paulb100]

is this safe?
as the people say it doesnt work>? i dont wanna render vista useless and have to re-install

[yuzna]

just follow the instructions, print them out and there won't be any problems. If you are using a 64-bit and a 32-bit you have to use your brain a little bit, but otherwise its a piece of cake.

[Gswiss]

There's a similar installation procedure, with more data, on
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vi...ml#post4844148.

I followed it successfully and, among other things I disabled SATA Native Support in the BIOS.

After everything was over and working fine, I re-enabled it and then, I couldn't boot properly. By going back to the disable status, the dual boot worked fine again.

Are there any negative consequences due to this disablement?

[Scotay01]

hi i just bought a acer aspire 3680 with vista how can i format the HD AND INSTALL XP
i find it allot better for me

[Gswiss]

You're right about Vista because it's crap and Microsoft did an excellent snow job, as usual.

However, before destroying Vista, make sure Acer won't denounce their warranty in case you run into trouble the first year. Unlike HP or IBM-LENOVO, they have very poor support standards and are capable of denouncing it on the basis that the new configuration is not covered. That's why it is wiser to keep Vista during the warranty period and install XP in a dual boot environment. Also check that all Acer drivers you will need are available for XP. That's another reason why I chose HP.

If you do decide to get rid of Vista, when installing XP you will have the option of formatting your disk.

Otherwise, you can use Acronis Boot Loader (which is standalone) or Acronis Disk Director Suite version 10 under Vista which deals with Partition Management and which is a better product than Partition Magic. Or eventually Vista Disk Management will accept to delete your Vista partition.

[themummyXXX]

hey Gswiss I Totally agree with thou, Windows Vista is nothing but another bug, it only brought Unidentified errors and a LOT of incompatibility, which I hate, so I was deciding to go back to Windows XP.
I read a couple of things posted here, and you emntion something about having a dual boot cuz of the Warranty, but the thing is, I just dont like doing dual boot, ,
My sistem, and I think all New PCs with Vista has the System recovery installed in their systems, If i deleted Vista, cant i reach the System recovery to recover back My vista OS?


If I Overwrite the Windows Vista OS with another one, will I be able to acces the syst.Recovery drive and recover my Windows vista back, or i have to Re-install vista?

[gandalftheking]

Hi all,

i want to get XP on my Samsung R70 laptop instead of the supplied Vista. I want to do a complete fresh install. Win XP boots from cd ok, goes through set-up and then blue screens with a pci.sys error message. I've tried this a few times but always get that message.

I was thinking of trying the Vista restore, or just use the samsung utility to restore my laptop to its factory state, but am at work right now, so just wanted to ask for waus around the pci.sys problem, as I cannot be sure that restoring Vista to it's factory state will enable the XP install.

Thanks for reading.

[Gswiss]

I'm not in a position to comment on the Vista Recovery procedure as I seldom use Microsoft utilities because I don't trust them. People have had problems in XP with the Restore feature. I use Acronis TrueImage instead which I prefer to Norton Ghost (Norton products are poor quality since Symantec bought out Norton). Or you can also use an external USB disk where you could store a copy of your Vista partition.

With a reliable Save/Restore feature, you could always get your Vista back on your system.

I suggested a dual boot solution because it's no hassle. Right now, my operational OS is Windows 2000-SP4 which I use alongside XP in dual boot mode. I prefer Windows 2000 because it gives you better performance and it's more stable. Microsoft are coming out with an SP3 for XP next year. They had so many problems with Vista (which they haven't ironed out yet and the crap they are selling us is a ripped down version compared to the features they promised) that they postponed SP3 which was scheduled for this year.

[Gswiss]

Originally Posted by gandalftheking

Hi all,

i want to get XP on my Samsung R70 laptop instead of the supplied Vista. I want to do a complete fresh install. Win XP boots from cd ok, goes through set-up and then blue screens with a pci.sys error message. I've tried this a few times but always get that message.

I was thinking of trying the Vista restore, or just use the samsung utility to restore my laptop to its factory state, but am at work right now, so just wanted to ask for waus around the pci.sys problem, as I cannot be sure that restoring Vista to it's factory state will enable the XP install.

Thanks for reading.

You're not providing enough details, so it's difficult to answer you.

Are you trying to install XP in dual boot mode alongside Vista? Have you deleted your Vista Partition? Have you just got a pre-installed Vista on your laptop or do you also have a Vista DVD? Can you still access Vista?

What is the wording of the error message concerning pci.sys? Are you using an XP SP2 CD?

pci.sys error could be any of the following : the file is not present, your RAM is damaged, you are not using XP SP2 on a recent machine, etc.

[yukon]

Cute partition manager is free and very small utility. Download and burn the cd per instructions. Make sure you download all drivers for xp for your particular machine. This is important. Save them to a thumbdrive or cd. Use cute partition to wipe all partitions on vista drive. You will then be able to boot your xp disc and then install drivers. My laptop is smoking now that I got Pista off and XP running. Boots in about 35 seconds and it's lightning fast. Quite unbelievable the amount of speed between Pista (sluggish at it's best) and XP. Good luck and feel free to email it you have any questions.
Yukoncornelius1@netzero.net

[paulb100]

If i follow this will it boot into the GUI part of XP setup?
just like the guy said in post#2... im worried the same happens
when installing XP for dual boot it goes through setup but has to restart
the pc at some stage then continue setup... will it do this or will it just 'hang'
like the guy says happened to him in post #2....

[yukon]

I don't dual boot so I probably can't help you there. I wiped my drive and have no partitions. It was a simple process of installing XP. Just make sure you have a bootable cd. I see no reason why once you get Vista off you couldn't create a partition and install XP the same way. A partition shouldn't affect your install. I hope this helps.