Upgrading to XP....yes i said UPGRADING not downgrading.

1) I have succesfully ruined my life.
2) I have no joy of owning a new laptop
3) i wanna kill myself

Why you shall ask...
one word : VISTA

i wasnt aware of the difficulties of downgrading Vista to XP on an HP dv4 1131 tx. So like a perfect moron i walked into a store and happily bought that machine. After having faked my excitement about cool fake looks of Vista i decided i had enough of the sluggish slow *** moving electronic snail called Vista.

Wanting to install XP my average IQ told me i should be securing the drivers first from HP site. Behold...the monopoly and its evil intentions.. there r no XP drivers as you pro guys must already be knowing.

I saw the stickied tutorial kinda thing by Hackez etc on this forum. But it didnt list my model there...

Any of u peeps who own dv4 and have succesfully downgraded to XP ( seriously one should call switching to XP from Vista as an UPGRADE )

Help an amateur out...i dont know much about computers but i am a fast learner. You wont have to break your skull in your process of helping me or explaining me.

A million thanks to all

 

If you don't know much about computers, how can you bash Vista so much? I'm an IT professional and I'm running Vista... without issues. What are the specs of that laptop? T5800, 3GB, 9200M GS, right?
That should handle Vista with ease. Consider switching to the 64 bit flavor of Vista.

If you're 100% set on installing XP I would be happy to help, in fact, getting XP on unsupported laptops is a hobby of mine. But before that, I'd like to make sure your hate for Vista isn't mis-informed and/or mis-directed. That said, most of my computers are still running XP - I think it's important to have hardware that compliments the software.

That laptop is using the Intel 965PM Chipset, right? The first step will be to slipstream AHCI drivers into the XP CD. You can do this using nLite. Alternatively, you may be able to switch the AHCI mode to compatibility mode in the BIOS, though some laptops have this option disabled. Most people will not notice a performance loss switching from AHCI to ATA mode, and it is easier than making a custom XP disc.

 

Yea... me and hep! the same..
I really like vista... i use it on my desktop, and i intend on using xp on my laptop, but only because i need every ounce of speed, because it is partially being used for LANs...
So, as Hep! said... try it out more, and i really like vista, give it a shot (and don't believe the anti vista hype.. vista is fine!.... a clean install of vista will help speed things up a bit as well)

 

you have got a point. If i dont understand much about computers how can i hate vista. Allow me to allay your fears that i am just jumping on the band wagon and calling vista a spade.No i am not.

when i said i dont know much about computers tbh i was trying not to come across as a high headed asswipe as my entire post was stemming out of frustration.

T5800, 3gb and 9200 is right....that should handle Vista with ease...i said the same to myself before buying this machine...i mean...3 GB isnt less.Its not about the hardware config handling the OS....its about how much my OS is eating into the available hardware resources leaving me with less of resources as compared to XP.

I am someone who installs yahoo widgets, rocket docks , etc kinda applications. Those widgets are imp for me to keep an eye on stock prices etc..All these applications eat into my RAM ofcourse..of the 3 GB RAM that comes along with the machine my machine idles at close to 1.5 GB RAM usage...u tell me...is it right ?

Moreover...my games, they dont work...some do...some dont. I thought vista supports dx 10...so does my GPU...but how would i know that supporting dx 10 would mean my dx 9.0c games would have a tough time. Can u believe when one of the errors i get in attempting to run flatout 2 ultimate carnage is a directx 9 error. Company of Herores simply wont work.

If i am coming accross as someone bashing VISTA i am really not. But while trying to portray how badly i want XP i am bound to make Vista look bad. My needs are not being catered by Vista and thats all. I wouldnt recommend someone VISTA but i would also at the same time congratulate someone for upgrading to Vista...i got nothing personal against it...just give me my XP back though..

 

its been a week. While buying the laptop i said the same to myself. I will use it and get to like it. But i cant with so much of my stuff not working. Also i am an avid online gamer...Vista is eating too much into my RAM...

seriously...i aint a total noob. I have done enough coding and can operate every OS out there be it MAC, linux,FreeBSD, OpenBSD etc. I am a Mehcatronics engineer by profession and have to occasionalluy deal with computers myself.

I aint hating Vista...I am loving XP

 

Fair enough. I don't really agree with those reasons, (my desktop boots to 1.3 GB of memory used on Vista, it's disgusting when compared to XP, but XP also came out 6 years before Vista. Hardware's advanced A LOT in 6 years, so it's not odd to think software would be more demanding).
Moving on...

If you don't care about having AHCI mode enabled, check your BIOS for a drive configuration option, setting it from AHCI/RAID to Native/Legacy/ATA (should be one of those)
If you want AHCI mode enabled, or do not have an option to turn it off, let me know and we will move on to slipstreaming.

 

the BIOS is InsydeH20 and it doesnt offer me any such options..tbh i dont care about keeping AHCI

 

i am thinking u have done this before and hence asking you this. If u dont happen to know no issues..

Would i find the finger print reader driver for XP ?
and lastly i have got face recognition installed on this machine for login purposes.I know HP doesnt ship with it but i got Lenovos Veriface working on this. would it also work on XP....

that would be it....thanks once again...waiting for your futher directions

 

Well, if you don't have an option to turn it off, you have to keep it. I am not sure what hardware you will be able to get to work. How get XP on unsupported systems is I install, and any devices that do not get installed by default I pull their hardware IDs with unknown device doohickey. Then I find generic versions of these drivers, usually direct from the manufacturer of the hardware, not the OEM like HP or Dell or whatever. So if the fingerprint reader will work is a toss up without first researching what specific fingerprint reader is in it.

As for the Veriface software... if it works on Lenovos in Vista and XP and it works on an HP in Vista, I can only assume with will work on an HP in Vista.. but I am not sure. Sorry.


For slipstreaming, you will need a few things:
1) An XP disc
2) AHCI drivers for XP. These are the ones you need. http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...&OSFullName=Windows* XP Professional&lang=eng
3) nLite - http://nliteos.com/

Install nLite and follow on screen instructions for integrating drivers. Select the drivers you extract from the link I gave you, and for the specific drivers, select ICH8-M, if there are a few ICH8-M's, select the one that says AHCI, not the one that says RAID.

 

processing your info given above...shall respond then

 

Wow. Giving up easy...
Any laptop you buy in a store right now will have Vista. XP can only be sold as a downgrade with a Vista license, and that's only until January. You will have to order it online, and your options will be limited.

 

Puh-lease. Vista is fine.

 

I don't agree with this logic. Hardware in itself will not demand huge amounts of memory. All hardware demands are drivers so they can work on the OS. Drivers by themselves don't necessarily contain huge amounts of code as we all know. The decision to go hot and heavy on expanding the code base on the OS was a MS decision. I agree, Vista works ok on my laptop but I'd rather have a leaner OS that does not try to be everything. Many like myself just want a lean OS to install our favorite programs on. One thing I really don't appreciate about Vista is superfetch and all the disk thrashing it requires to load huge amounts of programs into memory. Personally, I think Vista is just too bloated when you pair it up with existing hard drive technology. Vista really pushes the envelope and the need for SSD drives to keep up with the enormous amounts of code that gets loaded into memory. Pesonally, I think one of those new Intel SSD drives with Vista might be a pretty decent setup. But running my 5400 rpm drive on my dvt6500 I would rather have XP.

This is not just about Vista being stable or compatible with most folks. The truth is Vista is a pretty decent OS in reliability and compatibility. People just want software that is leanly coded. I have always enjoyed lean coded programs. Anyone can write bloated code but to develop software that does a ton of crap with under 10 megs of code takes talent. There are two schools of thought here. Yes many willl go for all the eye candy and enormous code base with all the bells and whistles.. meaning it will do far more then just run a base OS for installed programs. But there are millions that don't care for that. And MS is making a huge mistake by not listening to them. MS has lost huge market shares to the laptop market to apple and many businesses are not interested in beefing up hardware for hundreds of machines just so they can run vista. I know my school just upgraded all their PC's to HP's and they exercised their downgrade rights on every one of them to XP. I think by now MS should realize that there is a huge customer base and a majority of businesses that want a leaner and meaner OS. And MS is not listening so Apple just keeps plugging at their market share. Also, If MS stops Dell and others from allowing customers to excercise their XP downgrade rights it will get really ugly and many companies will leave MS for good.

Oh and bye the way, what the heck is your pc loading 1.3 gigs into Vista? Thats allot. My dvt6500 does not even use half that much to boot Vista and I'm still frustrated on boot times and that nasty superfetch/disc thrashing.. But turning off superfetch makes things even worse. The OS is just too bloated. It demands that you load tons into memory to even bring it back to XP performance. In my eyes, MS is going the wrong direction. Windows seven will be more of the same and I see businesses migrating away from MS to apple and other solutions. One thing about MS is they don't listen to their customers. Thats bad business. It does not matter if MS thinks they are right. If the customer says they want lean, then that means lean. MS really needs to start listening. I think Windows seven will determine whether MS will continue to grow or if they sink and continue to loose more market share.

 

With 6GB of RAM I have Vista superfetch the games I commonly use (Zombie Panic Source, Team Fortress 2). These games open in a split second. There is a lot of hate for how much system resources Vista uses, but consider what was commonly in a computer in 2002 when XP was released - ~1.5GHz single core CPU and 256MB of RAM. What's in a computer today? 2-3GHz Dual/Quad core and 2-4GB of RAM. MS is listening, but not to users like you, because you're confused. It's not the job of software makers to make a faster operating system (or whatever they are making), it's their job to make the most efficient operating system they can that will run well on today's hardware (and I pin it on the backs of OEMs when they do stupid things like putting a slow 5400RPM drive with an operating system that is hard drive intensive, or when you have systems coming with Vista and only 512MB-1GB of RAM.) The fact is, it's not 2002 anymore, and computer hardware has made leaps and bounds since then. It's about time we stop complaining that a system that can do more requires more out of our hardware. People have asked me if it bothers me that I'm using so much RAM, but it doesn't - 8GB for a desktop (DDR2, PC6400) costs ~100 bucks. What's the issue with 1/8 being used? XP used what? ~200MB on boot? In systems with 256MB, this is far over 1/8 or even 1/2.
When you consider how system intensive XP was when it first came out, it was just as disgusting as Vista, which is why we still have people hanging around on 2000 claiming it's all you need because XP is just a bloated piece of crap. Don't become one of those people with XP and Vista, I know there are going to be plenty of them. XP wasn't leanly coded, it's just old. Look at all software. Games are another perfect example of things that are requiring a ton more system resources, the difference between that and Vista is their advancements are more visible. I even hear people complaining about games and their requirements... Just stop living in 2002 and it won't be a problem. You can play most modern games at low settings on a 600 dollar laptop. That's pretty amazing if you ask me.
The reason MS is losing market share does not have to do with their product quality, it has to do with marketing. Steve Jobs is a very good speaker and Apple has an excellent marketing team.... and that's about it. Steve Jobs tells people that they need things, and people listen, even if it's not true. This can only support a small market percentile, and even if many people began to switch to Mac, you would see that they would also quickly switch back.
Sidenote: not sure where you got the idea that I was saying hardware takes more memory? Cause I didn't. I said we have more memory, might as well use it...

 

You don't get it. Look, not everyone has to agree with your logic here. The bottom line is many, including myself and ALLOT of businesses want a bare bones lean coded OS. Whether you and MS feel your absolutely right.. without question does not matter. But I agree to one extent that MS screwed up hugely when they released Vista before Intel had a GPU that could handle aero. So that and the fact they loaded early systems with 512 or a gig of memory put them on a disastrous course. And remember, allot of companies that use older hardware/software cannot run Vista and/or get it to network worth a crap. It makes no matter at this point. MS has no choice but to lean the crap out of Vista if they want to improve their standing with customers and businesses. That's a fact like it or not at this point.

And remember also, that Apples OS is allot leaner coded and demands less then Vista. Allot of people have migrated to apple for that fact alone. And there also has to be a cost/benefit for all the hardware upgrades for customers to except a hungrier OS. The fact is, what the hell does Vista bring us in productivity wise and improvements over XP. Does it do anything better? For me and many others no. Thats the fundamental issue that people have been complaining about Vista since day one. And a leaner coded OS will always run smoother and faster then a bloated one given the exact same specs.. Bloating the code is never a good thing in my world.

Also comparing OS bloat to gaming requirements does not make sense. Of course you will need a strong GPU to play modern games. That's a given. Gamers generally don't want to add OS bloat to gaming requirements. Those two should not be compared. For many including myself, the OS should take as little resources as possible and still be able to launch an executable. Its as simple as that.

 

All of you need to look up superfetch. Your RAM should ALWAYS be full. How is it useful to you if there's nothing in it. The point of RAM is to have often used info sitting in an area where it'll be read faster. Empty RAM is a waste of space. XP was and is terrible at RAM caching.

 

Not gonna go over every point, just want to point out that OS 10.5 (Tiger) is more of a system hog than Vista, and it's a huge misconception if you think otherwise.

 

The problem is the long wait and boot time and for superfetch to load everything into ram. I agree, with Vista you have no choice since it really stinks if you disable superfetch. But on a fast PC with a clean install of XP, things open pretty fast without superfetch and disk thrashing. AT school they have some new HP's with 3.0ghz core2 with 2 gigs of ram running on XP and they fly and boot very fast. I'd take a leaner XP with faster boots and no superfetch over vista. I think the only thing that's going to completely resolve this are SSD drives. As been said on this thread, its ok for MS to expand their OS etc... since ram and CPU's etc.. are cheap now.. NO, the problem still lies in platter driven HD's which are not keeping up with MS bloat. I also realize that Apples OS's are getting too bloated as well.. But that is more of a recent thing which is too bad. It was not long ago those machines could run on 512 pretty well. I understand that Vista sleep mode can keep the ram loaded but on my laptop it will power down to hibernation which means.. superfetch and disk thrashing when I start it up. Sleep mode takes more battery life then I would like as well. Again, it would be nice just to have a leaner OS I could just shut down and not have to wait 5-6 minutes for a OS to fully boot with superfetch finally stopping.

Look, Its not that superfetch is not a good idea.. it is. I just feel that MS could do more to lean Vista out and still keep most of its functionality intact. For starters.. take all the deep embedded DRM out. I know they can still keep the 3d aero desktop without demanding that a gig get loaded into ram at every boot. Its a balance and MS just got carried away big time on the code. I honestly can't see how an average person can deal with an OEM machine on a factory install. My laptop ran like absolute garbage when I got it. After a clean install and spending two days tweaking and killing off as many services that I could get away with in msconfig and services.msc it became tolerable.

 

MS is going to screw themselves over when they do this. I'm talking about their business customers (remember most of the systems still available with XP are on the business line and about 60% of businesses are generally still exercising those downgrade rights.) If they don't extend that date out.. way out it will byte them in the arse. Many companies are hoping and waiting for windows seven. From what I hear.. they won't be happy when it arrives.. its sounds to be more of the same. But if they really do this that will give them no choice except Vista for probably a year. After all the businesses that have already stated they would never migrate to vista.. you turn around and tell those same business customers.. which are very important for MS.. that you HAVE to buy Vista? MS will have completely gone mad if they carry that out. Who cares if they exercise their downgrade rights. At least they are still running a MS OS. And doing that before seven is out.. Their NUTS!!

And then for probably a year, businesses would hold out on all computer purchases until seven arrived.. That will no doubt **** off dell HP and all PC suppliers. So they would hurt their vendors and all important business customers at the same time.. really stupid but I see them doing it.. MS has the denial complex to carry it out no problem. Hopefully seven will be a leaner OS. You got to remember that Vista was a rush job.. After years of longhorn etc.. they ran into walls and basically had to start over with a rush with Vista. Its not like they spend that 6 years making a wonderful OS that everyone would love. Its takes time to code in a lean way. I am convinced that vista's bloat is somewhat tied to its rushed development.

 

Anyone can say that a product isn't good. I don't have to know about cars to say that it's bad when I have to take it in for repairs a month after buying it. As such, I don't have to know about computers to say that Vista the slowest OS I have ever seen (though I do know about computers, so whatever).

Actually, I know plenty of IT professionals who know absolutely nothing about computers other than their one particular career area (like mainframe, SQL, Java, etc.)

``Should'' being the operative word there. Vista `` should'' work as it was intended to 5 years ago when M$ started working on Longhorn. But it doesn't. I have an HP laptop (specs listed in my sig) with similar specs, and it ran Vista ridiculously slow. Bootup took almost 5 minutes. Gentoo Linux boots in 30 seconds flat.

First of all, that would require purchasing Vista again, seeing as OEM Vista licenses only support one architecture.

So we should only use hardware with the software that it came for? That's a horrible way of promoting competition among software vendors.

 

Wow srunni, perhaps one of the most ignorant posts I've seen in a while!

I wasn't saying he couldn't say it was bad, I was asking specifics on why he thought it was bad - many people with no knowledge of the system jump on the Vista hate bandwagon.

Okay... I'm not one of them.

Nice job comparing apples to oranges. The reason for the slow bootup is MOST LIKELY linked to the fact that you have a 5400RPM hard drive. If you did not do a clean install, this makes a large difference as well. My Asus S96J was the only high end laptop I ever bought with a 5400RPM drive, and it was SO SLOW booting XP SP2. Put in a 7200RPM drive and that went right away.

Completely and entirely WRONG. Vista licensing covers both X86 and X64 versions. The difference between OEM and retail is with OEM you only get one type of media, with certain retail versions, you get both X86 and X64 media. If you have an OEM license you are allowed to install whatever flavor you want, all you have to do is get the disc.

How the **** did you get that from what I was saying? For example, my desktop is an E8400, 4GB PC6400, 8800GTS, 500GB 7200.11. It would be outright silly for me to run XP on this system, as XP does not compliment the hardware. To get the most from my hardware, I need to run Vista X64. Furthermore, people go and install Vista on older single core computers with a gig or so of RAM, I believe these computers would be far better suited with Windows XP installed. Vista simply does not compliment the hardware. I can go on and on with this, but hopefully you've gotten the point.

 

Hep...you keep saying that one shouldnt live in 2002 because in 2002 one had less hardware resources like say only a GB in a laptop and so XP was a heavy system back then too. Yes very true, Sir.
But what now. I am living in 2008 where i have 4 GB and i wouldnt care if XP was heavy back then..Today if with 4 GB its lighter than VISTA then whats the use of talking about how it was in its infancy.The bottome line is XP runs faster to me than VISTA...it doesnt matter if i am a moron.I want XP and if i dont get it i will migrate. Most of the end users are morons. Do not talk of upgrading to 6 GB RAM. Thats a load of money for many.Alone that will make them tell their friends to migrate to other OS than VISTA even if they break their own budgets and invest in 6 GB.Ppl stayed with 2000 because as u say urself XP was heavy back then for a laptop with 512 MB...but MS didnt force customers to use XP...so they took their while...got the money...hardware improved and got cheaper and eventually these guys got XP. Its not the same with VISTA....they are phasing out XP and forcing customers to use VISTA.The intent behind phasing out XP is not cause its a bad system.Its only a monetary strategy that they r indulging themselves in and it is gonna backfire.As far as i go...it already has...i returned my hp4 as it was under the 14 days no questions asked return duration and got myself an apple.

 

So you got an Apple with an equally bloated OS (OS 10.5 - Tiger), identical hardware, for way more money, instead of investing the 50 dollars in 2x2GB of memory? Wow, that's pathetic. You are a moron. Your posts make almost no sense.

 

???
If my games taking all of my 4 GBs i got no issues with RAM being full.I want it to be full
But if my OS is eating into 1.5 GB of the RAM which my game or any app for that matter could be using for itself then its a problem.I am not contesting that resources are there to be used.But not by OS pls.Used by my applications.

like i said...a mega brute machine wouldnt suffer from VISTA....it looks cool to the owner and he may have it...got no problems...but gimme my option of installing XP on a 5400 rpm machine with mere 3 GB and an average GPU.FFS i dont wanna invest in a mamoth machine.Why take away the option away from me...just evil monopoly ..

 

You're not understanding. Vista uses something called superfetch. It detects what programs you use a lot, and loads them up on boot. The more memory you have, the more memory will be used on startup. So your game that you play every night/word which you open twice a day/firefox which you open every 10 minutes? Those get prefetched. You boot with them already loaded but with no CPU priority, then when you want the program, it loads in .2 seconds instead of 5 seconds or 10 seconds or however long it takes.

The only reason not to use Vista is if you have a slow hard drive. 5400 RPM? 3GB RAM? Sure, XP sounds great. But you're sticking with XP for the wrong reasons, because you don't understand Vista.

 

Are you a girl....why do u take arguments personally ? cant u stick to logic ? or do u run out of it ?

What even gives u the arrogance to think that i paid more or an equal amount for apple..the solace of sitting behind a keyboard ?

A good friend I know heads the apple agency here in my state and tbh i have paid nothing till now. Plus its cheaper even if i have to pay for it....I have bought it on a test ride kinda system..seriously what made u jump to the conclusion ?

 

didnt i say i got no problems with VISTA on a mamoth machine...but 5400 and 3 GB is what i wanna pay...is all i have..so yes i got a problem running vista on it...thats all u ever needed to say tbh...dont get the holy attitude of judging that others are jumping on the bandwagon and hating vista...get to know the issue first hand ...making a judgement of others judgement is bound to be a failure

 

I'm not sure where you saw me take this topic personally.
You type like an incompetent person, jump around on reasons for wanting XP, don't understand Vista and how superfetch works, and worst of all, don't care to learn. I think that falls into the moron category. The fact that you continually misunderstand what I am saying can only lead me to believe English is not your first language, or, you are extremely dense. Oh, let us not forget that you ditched a laptop because it was going to take a few hours to get it moved to XP.

And lastly, why wouldn't I think your Apple cost more than your HP? An HP like you described costs about 600-800 dollars. There's no apple laptop that costs less than 1000 new.

 

You are right.English is not my first language...I am a German currently in India on Business...thats got nothing to do with this though..i guess my language abilities arent being the hindrance here but your child like ways of arguing and making arguments personal are certainly coming in our way.Calling ppl morons is making an argument personal.If thats seriously your opinion u might as well refrain from replying to my posts.Which are not gonna be many in number anyways

heres a heartbreaker...it wouldnt have taken me only a couple of hours to move onto XP...i will tell u why...now wait..i wont...find me the drivers for finger print device for dv4 tx 1131..and then we shall talk.

secondly installing XP on the HP dv4 i had (succesfully or unsuccesfully) would have violated the terms and i wouldnt have been able to give back this machine with no questions asked. Seriously the only mistake u r commiting here is assuming in all ur posts that i am averse to gathering knowledge and being a VISTA Fanboy.You are talking of superfetch...and the way it helps in boot times..I am talking about how i am runnning out of RAM and how OS is affecting my framerates with the limited hardware resources and how dx10 is landing with dx9 errors.Superfetch is not helping me cause i am not looking towards quicker boot times. Dont suggest to go get a new GPU and more RAM.We have been over this.But i guess u will still insist on the boot times being lesser due to superfetch. I couldnt care less about the boot times if my frame rate is right. WAIT...i couldnt care about my frame rate if my games RUN. 4 of them dont.

after a 3 page thread u fail to grasp the jist of what i want.i dont want to argue..i dont want to hate VISTA (neither do I) and i dont want to be fathered by u in my decisions..u telling me whatever reasons i should be sticking with VISTA play no role to me. I want to go back to XP..Whatever my reasons...right or wrong.MS wont allow me to go back through their vivid money minded strategies....If MY applications dont work ...then they dont...if they did...i wouldnt be here.Plain.

I havent paid for Apple...if not liked i will give it back...just like HP.I thought i made it evident in my last post.I would gladly shell out the difference tbh..If shellling more money for things that one wants is moronical then so is EARNING less money to be having to think so hard for 200 $.If you know what i mean.

Lastly, remove the sand outta your pants and stop being so irritated if ppl are not sharing your veiws

 

I guess not everyone can be helped. Can't say I didn't try.
Best of luck in your XP search and other future endeavors.

 

It's increasingly difficult to find XP drivers for newer machines. And HP does not keep a full compliment of drivers, XP or otherwise on their site. They keep their drivers in the swsetup folder that is shipped with your machine.

What's interesting is that there are a number of XP compliant drivers in the swsetup folder.

Anyway, the other thing you can do is to use some of Dell's drivers for compatible hardware. Go into system/devices and get the actual hardware ID of the device you need a driver for and google it on the web or go to dell's site and see if they have a compatible software.

As for games, I've been running a number of 2005 and up games in Vista x64. So you might want to ask for workarounds to get certain games to run. Sometimes it's a matter of driver. Other times it's a matter of running the game in XP SP2 compatibility mode. Even running as administrator works with older games.

My only issue with Vista is boot time. 3-4X longer than XP. Otherwise it runs as good if not better in some respects than XP. I haven't had a single blue screen. Note though, that I'm running a clean install instead of the HP preloaded one. Clean install makes a difference in a number of scenarios.


The other route you might consider is running XP in a virtual machine. I used to do it using VMware 6 for the sake of one program until I figured out how to get it to run in Vista.


So you have options.

 

I don't have any play in this battle, but I just want to point out that if you switch to Apple that Backwards compatibility is zero. Now if you just want the Apple machine for BootCamp and XP, then this isn't an issue. Alternatively you can still order XP machines from Dell, they will likely be cheaper than the Apple unit. Just throwing it out there.

 

Hi,

I have a dv4 1000 CTO with the following configuration: 8400, 3GB, 256MB 9200 GS, 250GB HDD. II installed XP on this machine but could not get drivers for audio IDT (tried lot of options from different threads (dv5, dv7) but no lcuk). The problem is OS is not detecting the audio device. After I install the MS KB835221 for MS UAA high definitiona audio, it is detecting audio device and asking for IDT drivers and as I point to the drivers directory it is installing those drivers and asking me to restart the system. Once I restart there is no audio and the system is in old state.

So I am not able to decide whether the problem is with MS UAA driver or IDT highdefinition audio driver.

Thanks in advance

 

You could try using an unofficial HP BIOS f.11c then XP will know about the audio devices. Also gets the audio working with Ubuntu 8.04.

XP SP3 initial installation with f.11c before adding drivers.


XP SP3 initial installation with f.04 or f.12 or f.13 before adding drivers.


If your not happy doing that, I think there are some other alternatives on this board if you search for them.

 

I won't comment on the games, but you are aware that vista is using that ram to cache programs it thinks you need based on your habits, and that it will take a week or two of using the notebook regularly before vista can learn your habits. It is actually more memory efficient because it uses the ram that would otherwise just be sitting around unused. When it needs that ram it simply releases what it has cached and uses it for the new program being loaded. Not all of that ram being used is just for vista, a lot of it is being used to keep programs you regularly run in RAM for quick access to them. On my machine for instance, I use photoshop CS4 almost daily, and it opens in a matter of a second or two because Vista keeps it in RAM for me based on my habit of using it daily.

In this way O.S.X is pretty much the same. You need to give vista a chance to learn your software habits. Now as to the games, I have no idea because I no longer use my computers for gaming (Xbox 360 for that now). so someone else will have to help you with that issue.

However if it is any consolation to you, Microsoft is working hard to tighten up the code for Windows 7 and they even showed it off running on a netbook at their recent conference that took place last week. Windows 7 is to Vista as Snow Leopard is to O.S.X, both Updates are focusing on streamlining their current O.S. for better and more efficient performance.