Toshiba laptop w/ xp pro

Does anyone put window XP on Vista laptop? I am about to buy new toshiba but want to put XP. My concerns are drivers, would like to know someone have done it before? thanks

 

Vista is not the monster it's been made out to be. I guarantee that if you try to downgrade a new Vista machine to XP, you'll be smacking yourself in the head repeatedly for doing it. Simply stated, Toshiba and other vendors have made it clear that they do not support XP downgrades, meaning any drivers you scrounge may or may not (more likely) work. Everyone who has tried to downgrade a Vista machine to XP has had problems with drivers and/or BIOS because the vendors aren't releasing any for XP. Usually what happens is you'll wind up getting some things to work, but usually audio and media type drivers won't work properly. Also, only some systems have been found to be downgradeable - most aren't, so if you go that route with one that can't be downgraded, you'll spend a lot of time for nothing and still have to reload Vista to use your system anyway.

The key to Vista is using the right Edition. Business or Ultimate are the best - Home Premium isn't bad. Home sucks. Also, the key is to have enough RAM (minimum 2gb, 3 for a 32bit system, 4 or more for a 64 bit system) as Vista is memory and resource intensive. If you have the right configuration, Vista beats XP hands down. I was one of the ones that considered a downgrade as well, but after talking to my peers in the IT community it became apparent that the only problems with Vista were user related and not system related. I've yet to have a problem with it like I've had with XP over the years.

If you're adamant about taking the plunge, then I'd recommend hitting the Toshiba Support Forums to find out if your system is one that can handle a downgrade. That's the best place to start, as the vendor forums are usually littered with the remains of those who tried to downgrade without first finding out what they needed first.

 

I won't even try XP on my P300, but I must say sometimes Vista 64 is infuriating. It takes twice as long to load (even after picking the startup programs and services clean), hangs for unusual reasons, and sometimes just simply cannot install or run certain programs or drivers I (e.g. my Samsung ml-1520 printer drivers will not load the Vista drivers). It seems non-intuitive in so many areas, and this is after 4 months of use. I think Vista is okay for the most part, but other than looking pretty it was mostly a useless upgrade from XP.

 

xp is great on my X205....I've re-tried vista repeatedly, but I always return to XP, as it is faster and simply works better at everything I do. Vista is "pretty".......but that's about it.