What's up with all the downgrades?

Not having owned a Vaio before, and thinking about buying one, I have been browsing the forums here for a few days, and it seems like everyone is talking about downgrading from Vista to XP. I can understand why one would want not to use Vista (even though XP isn't exatly a dream come true either) but it seems Vaio users are almost obsesed with it, why is this? Does Vista run even worse on the Vaios than normal, perhaps due to lack of drivers etc? And are drivers available for Vista and XP or just pre-installed but then nowhere to be found?

The first thing I generally do with a new computer is to format the hard drives to get rid of all the bloatware, and normally, obtaining the drivers neeeded is just a matter of visiting the manufacturers site, but based on all posts here about drivers, I am a bit worried I'd have to say. Should I be?

/pJ

 

I think you are mis-characterizing what you are seeing here. Everyone is not talking about downgrading. There are a handful of folks doing so. The reason for the high volume of messages from these folks is that it is VERY difficult to downgrade a Sony, because not all of the utilities needed are available.

All of the drivers and utilities needed are available for Vista from Sony. A clean install is very easy to do, IF you have a Vista install DVD. (Sony does NOT provide one, they only provide a recovery disk creation function.)

Gary

 

Well NOT all that easy. They give you all the drivers, but don't tell you the order to install them in. But it's not as bad as some other companies. I for one will stick with Vista for now. Its OK.

 

Ok, I'm going to stick with Vista anyway, despite the fact that all nVidia drivers I have tried (and that's a lot!) suck big time compared to the XP ones, but that is a bigger problem with my HTPC I think than with this computer, as I really dont plan to use it for gaming etc anyway.

/pJ