Can't downgrade to XP!?!?!

I am looking at getting the SONY VAIO SZ Series VGN-SZ670N/C http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117551 and I heard that you cant downgrade to XP, is this true?

 

If you have a legit XP disc you can. Just clean the HD with killdisc and put in the XP disc and tada. Make sure you have a disc with the drivers before you do this fyi.

 

Most laptops can downgrade to XP, just go on the Sony website and look for the drivers for your specific model and make sure they say that they're for XP.

 

Can I ask why you want to put XP in? Have you worked with Vista and don't like? I have XP and like but if I bought a new system and it only came with Vista before I went to all the trouble of finding drivers and such I would at least give it a shot. I do read many had trouble with Vista but many don't so I would see where I fit in that equation. And on to your question, I suspect you can get XP working as hardware has to support XP to be competitive in the market. So drivers should be out there. Does not mean it is going to be easy to find.

 

Vista doesn't support all PC games could be a reason.

 

What PC games doesn't Vista support?

 

yeah... i have never heard of vista not supporting an existing videogame.

 

I checked out the Sony site for you. This laptop absolutely will downgrade to XP without any big hassle. Sony actually certifies this laptop to work with XP and provides all the XP drivers on their site.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNSZ670NC&LOC=3

If your laptop comes with a recovery partition instead of discs, you might want to consider leaving the partition intact. Just incase you run into any unexpected problems or just want to revert.

Let us know how it works out for you. I have downgraded a few laptops to XP... All have been successful so far.

 

Main thing is not to confuse the official 'Downgrade' program offered by M$ and simply installing another OS on your sysytem. The downgrade program is speciifc, and it may not be available on this laptop, it's select laptops from select mfrs and only available for Vista Business and Ultimate purchasers. If yours qualifies you get a FREE XP install disk with all the drivers etc so you can blow out XP and make it as though it were pre-installed with XP the whole time easy as pie, otherwise you need to compile the drivers etc yourself (not hard for most of us) which is different, and just installing another OS, like installing Linux, etc.

One of the main reasons to use XP IMO, is driver support for peripherals which is terrible (and both the fault of M$ and the OEMs), for me I have a ton of audio and video gear that just won't work period, and my favourite phone which is palm based won't synch with Vista. So all that means bye bye Vista now that Crysis is completed in DX10 mode.

 

Right now Vista is a better choice... SP1 is around the corner..

u try out Vista & let us know if it gives any problem (which it wont as SP1 RC itself fixed lot of issues)

 

SP1 also cause alot of issues, I use both.

The problem is SP1 doesn't fic the driver issue which IMO is my biggest reason to not recommend Vista to anyone who has any legacy hardware or apps they wish to use. For them I say XP.

If you're starting from scratch with no legacy stuff buying all new gear and software from here on out, then I would recommend Vista which is ok and does have a few nice features worth considering.

The most annoying part is everything sofar shows XP's SP3 improving gaming performance and a few other things like Photoshop, yet Vista seems to have a miniscule performance drop instead. Personally didn't notice a drop when using 6001 or RTM, but I would've prefered noticing an improvement.