Can I install WinXP?

Hi Everyone,

I'm a little bit out of the loop cause I haven't had to buy in a while, so please bear with me...

I just bought a Inspiron 1525 (1.86GHz/667FSB/2MB ->Merom T5550 Core2Duo). As I understand it, this is a 64bit proc (Even though the Dell chat rep swore it wasn't). A friend told me that I can replace Vista with WinXP no problem.

2 questions:
1) Do I have to install the 64bit version of WinXP?
2) Since this is a 64bit processor, will I be able to run all my old 32bit SW -- With either operating system?


Thanks in advance,

-F

 

It's a 64-bit CAPABLE processor. You can run whatever you want, though it's recommended to stick with the OS that came with your system.

 

why do you want to downgrade to xp? vista is fine if not better than xp, imo

 

Thanks, Lithus! Yes, that is the word that I missed... "Capable". So simple. Also very helpful was the link in your signature "The Layman’s Guide to 64-Bit". Very well written and helpful -Thanks! I just got done reading the entire thread, and this helped a lot .

Hi McGrady. Well, I've heard some good things about Vista, but then again I've heard some bad things too (Like the thread "Will Vista ever be stable?" in this forum . Also, there seem to be quite a few sites explaining how to downgrade to XP from Vista & they seem pretty eager).

I just don't want to put all the effort of setting up the Vista machine, then finding out that it's buggy, or worse yet, that it won't run one of my old favorite programs. If this happens now, no biggie... I just reformat to XP. But, if it happens to me one day 6mo from now when the system is really setup the way I like it (tons of tweaking), that would really suck to go thought another 6mo of tweaking till I'm content.

Is Vista really that solid? Are there any programs that you wanted that wouldn't run in Vista? Should I go with the 64bit version (If I can find drivers)?

Now the only thing I really don't care for on this notebook is it's glossy screen .

Thanks to you both!

-F

 

As far as stability goes...my vista pc runs smooth and its just as snappy as my XP. It's been very stable for me, never got a single BSOD so far. I've tweaked my vista pc and I have the fastest boot time ever on any of my pc's. What is your "old favorite program?" I have no program that I need to run on Vista that is only compatible with XP. Yes, if you can find all your drivers, I don't see why not.

 

I suppose I could dual boot. Then when I work up the courage, I just make Vista default.

I wasn't really planning on running Vista when I bought it... Do you think it's powerful enough? http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8770671&st=t5550&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1203815682805

1.83GHz isn't too fast anymore

Thanks,

-F

 

Everyones experience with Vista is different. If one of your programs isn't going to work well with Vista you'll know it very quickly. There are even ways to run XP from inside of Vista (VMWare, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007) so that you can have the best of Vista and still all the backwords compatibility of XP.

I personally have a few big beefs with Vista, but most of them are program incompatibility problems. So I don't plan on using Vista probably ever, as by the time I don't need those programs anymore Windows 7 will probably be out.

Vista has a few other "bloated" features, but many of them can be turned off or their impact reduced. Take a look at a few of the tweaking forums on NBR, and you'll find many many hints to get your PC performing as well under Vista as it could with XP.

Now, as for the "six month I might need to reinstall" issue. That happens with ANY Microsoft OS. That little thing we can the registry is extremely powerful and useful, but its also the main reason Windows eventually needs reformating. Fact of life is that your OS will become unstable at some point and you'll need to reinstall. Heck, my grandmother's PC right now has some weird mouse issues and the screensaver only works about 25% of the time....because of those registry/stability issues. And she uses XP, not Vista.

You want to prevent that from happening to you? Invest in some quality hard drive backup software (Ghost, Acronis True Image), and make an image of your hard drive as soon as you finish setting it up and installing all those tweaks and activated-softwares. Store the image on another drive or partition, and if you ever have OS issues you just restore the OS from that image you made. Just keep your data in a separate partition, which is extremely easy (and recommended) to do...so that when you restore the OS you don't have to backup your data again.

And the T5500 processor isn't the newest or fastest, but it would be good enough unless you use some VERY powerful applications. I generally think that most Best Buy sold computers are a rip off...so I'd definitely post in "What Should I Buy?" to get more feedback. 15.4" screen at 1280x800 pixels, the X3100 IGP, and the T5500 at that price kind of sounds like a rip off personally...but maybe I'm wrong.

 

Hey Greg,
Yeah, I used to be that guy that would re-install once a year just to "clean up" the system. I've found that it's not really necessary for me thanks to a recipe of Ghost (albeit probably not often enough), System Restore, anti-virus SW, and being VERY careful of what SW I install. I'm still using the same install from when I bought my Inspiron 6000 ~4 years ago & It's still humming along smoothly.

My concern is that even if I have a Ghost backup of Vista, that won't help me too much if in 6mo I want to move to XP .

I've done some "power research" in the past few hours (and last night with the help of all of you here), and it looks like the main issues with Vista64 are with driver incompatibility and not so much program incompatibilities. I'm going to try 32bit Vista in a dual boot XP setup for a while and see if I have any blocking issues with SW not working.

I have used VMWare in the past and liked it, but the T5550 doesn't have Intel's Virtualization Technology enabled, and I heard that Vista requires this to run a virtual machine... or is that just for MS VPC 2k7? Also, don't i need ultimate? I'll have to look this up.

I totally agree with you that Best Buy is a rip-off. I haven't bought anything there since they changed their return policy (No exchanges without a receipt and they now charge a restocking fee for all items returned. -No thanks ) However, this is the only way I could find to buy the Dell notebook that I wanted without paying for the additional Dell warranty which I'll never use (If I can't solve the problem, they certainly can't. At least historically they haven't been able to).

I think it was a pretty good deal at $699? I know, it has Intel integrated graphics (not a big gamer -Maybe I'll try Team Fortress Classic 2), 1280x800... eh, that's what my I6000 has, and I'm happy with it. I always run my LCD's at their native resolution and I don't want to have to squint or increase the DPI to see it (after all that sort of defeats the purpose, right? ). The only thing I would like is a faster FSB. 667 is okay, but I would like 800... But even with 800FSB they don't run any of them at 1:1 so the bus to the memory is still at 667, once again, re-introducing the bottleneck .

I'm very open to suggestions on other Dell notebooks in the ~$699 range that would be better.


Thanks!

-F

 

Have you looked at the Dell refurb site? I got a very nice laptop for my wife for right around $550. If you look around, you might find a better laptop for less than what you are planning to spend on a new one at BestBuy.

 

The Dell notebook is good...its just that when purchased from Best Buy you cannot use the Dell coupons!

 

There are at least as many of us that prefer Vista as there are that dislike it... the people that don't like things tend to be a lot more vocal about it though. And in this case, they also have more need for creating threads about how to get their preferred OS running on their system.

There's really only one way to find out which OS will work better for you....

As for stability, Vista SP1 is as stable as the drivers you feed it. XP's drivers do tend to be a bit more mature, since XP has been around so much longer. But plenty of people have entirely stable Vista setups, so... I suggest you give it a spin and see how it works out for you.

As for compatibility, it obviously depends on what programs you run. Personally, the only thing I've had any issue with is cygwin, which I eventually got installed after messing around a bit. However, you're probably using programs I'm not, so... YMMV.

 

For that price, I don't think you'll find one better, even at Dell. When I got mine (6/06) with a 60GB HDD @ 7200, 1GB of mem, but no webcam, MS Works (or Bluetooth), for about the same price with stacked coupons, it was a bargain.

 

Yeah, I think I'm pretty happy with this one. Now I can open the box!

I'm going to instantly Ghost the drive, then create a dual boot with Vista32b and XP32b. From all the research and feedback, I think I'll make Vista default and use XP as a backup just in case.

Thanks for everyones help!!

-z