Replacing Pre-installed Vista with XP?

I just bought a Gateway P-7811 FX the other day, and it came with Vista. I've heard nothing but bad things about Vista and I'm uncomfortable using it in general, so I'm planning on buying a copy of Windows XP and using that instead. I'm not entirely sure of how to go about the whole process, though.

In terms of just getting XP to replace Vista to begin with, is it as simple as just putting in the disc and reformatting to XP? I recall reformatting on a computer which already had XP on it to be pretty self-explanatory, but I don't know if Vista will complicate things.

Secondly, this is my first time reformatting a computer without having any sort of restore disk or anything, so I'm not going to have any drivers. How do I go about figuring out which XP drivers I'll need and finding them online? I want to have that all ready before I start messing around with the OS.

If anyone can refer me to any guides or has any advice, it would be really helpful.

(For the record, I'd like to just replace Vista with XP as my primary drive, not dual boot. I don't have any real reason to dual boot, so it doesn't seem worth the hassle. Even if I change my mind later, I'd prefer having XP as the primary drive so it'll use the C: drive.)

 

First off i'm not the biggest fan of Vista but for goodness sake how about at least trying it for about a month or two before deciding to switch to XP.

Who knows you might like it.

 

Even from just my two days of playing around with the computer, I'm already a little irritated with Vista. I've spent years getting the hang of using XP, and to use Vista I'd basically have to relearn everything for no real practical benefit. I mean, I spent like fifteen minutes just trying to find the "run" command so I could check dxdiag. And I still don't know where it actually was...it just popped up in a search somewhere. Even if I were to get used to it, I'm not willing to trade performance drops and compatibility issues for a few shiny bells and whistles. That's just not my style.

Besides, I'm going to have to wipe the whole hard drive to put XP on it. If I'm planning on doing it sooner or later anyway, it might as well be now, before I spend days migrating and installing everything onto the drive. Doubly so considering that I'll be back at college in less than two weeks...not really the best time to be totally redoing everything on my computer. And especially not the best time for something to go wrong mid-install leaving me with no working OS. I'd much rather just get it out of the way now. I can always put Vista back on later if a legitimate reason to do so ever arises...the restore disk isn't going anywhere.

Though seeing as how this model only came out like two days ago, I'm not sure if XP drivers are even out there yet or not, so I may have no choice but to deal with Vista for a while...

 

Step Zero:
Buy a new hard drive for about $75.
Step One:
Install XP on the new drive.
Step Two:
Find out that you can't get XP drivers.
Step 3:
Swap the old hard drive back in, and you're back where you started... that's worth $75.

 

I'm going to have to side with the other posters and say you keep Vista. Not to be mean, but based on what you have told us so far, I believe you are too inexperienced with OS's to install one on a notebook off a retail disc, and I would hate to see you here a week later asking for drivers or help restoring your computer. If you absolutely must get rid of vista, then try getting XP up and running in a dual boot configuration. If you are unsuccessful, then it would just be a matter of inserting your vista disk and using the repair option to get vista running again. If you are successful, then that means you have all the drivers (and experience) needed to get XP on your primary partition and can take it from there.

A few ways I know of to get the run command working:
1) Click the vista orb (formerly start button) and type "run" into the search box. Run command is shown in results
2) Type the commands directly into the search box. Run command is intergrated into this box.
3) Hold the windows key and press R to activate the shortcut to the run command. Windows Key is the one next to the alt key and has a vista orb pictured

 

Yeah the "Run" utility is unnecessary in Vista (which is why it's not shown by default) because you can just run the command from the Start menu's search box. So just click the start button (or press the Windows key) and then type "dxdiag" and then Enter.

 

You can enable it though the start menu properties.

I say you should try and dual boot vista and xp (which i did before wiping vista)

 

True, but it's sort of pointless when you can just run commands from the start menu search box.

 

Run is under Start --> Programs --> Accessories in Vista.

Took me like an hour to find it the first time.

Most likely you can find the drivers, but it might take some trial and error. If you have only one computer, you would definitely want your ethernet and chipset drivers before you mess around with a new OS.

I recently installed XP on my XPS 1530 and Dell doesn't support XP whatsoever on that machine. Took me a few days to get it all squared away, but I just re-installed again (managed to get a nasty virus before installing anti-virus.. real smart) and it was really easy the second time around. Point is -- it should be doable, but might take some patience and planning. Hopefully there's a guide out there for installing it on your machine. Good luck.

 

Three methods already listed as well

 

Yeah I did see that and did not know about that before. Very interesting!!

I was just noting where you could find the old-school Run.

 

Thanks, I use the 2nd method, though I like the 3rd method as it has been around forever yet is so obscure almost no one knows about it. You might even say its worth a rep point mentioning.

 

I guess I'll start out with a dual-boot after all, then. I just assumed that dealing with two operating systems would be more complicated than doing just one. There's already a dual-booting guide in one of the stickies, so hopefully I'll be okay as far as that goes. (I'll have to make sure to do a reformat with my Vista disk before I start though...there's like forty gigs of crap on this thing already. Not something I can afford if I'm going to have to split the partition.)

The drivers are what I'm more worried about. The 7811 FX was only released like two days ago, so there obviously aren't going to be any guides out there specific to it yet. The closest I've found is a guide for the 6831 FX...I'm not sure if the drivers are going to be the same or not. They're both FX series laptops, but I don't know if any of the driver-related hardware has changed in between their releases. Aside from the graphics card, obviously, but that one should be easy.

I do still have my previous computer in working order, so there's no risk of me getting cut off from the internet due to driver problems and being unable to get updates.

 

I would also like to have xp rather than vista. I have vista home premium 64bit, and ive already had to find alternative antivirus programs because the one i had was for 32bit.

I called toshiba support today and they said that if i replace vista with xp it only voids the free technical support but the hardware warranty is still there. He also told me that i would have to find all the drivers myself through each manufactures website, however theres a good chance I wont be able to find all the drivers for xp.

It's pretty retarded that they're practicaly focing me to use vista. Ive reformatted my custom desktop computer a bunch of times without problems, but never a laptop, is it that much harder to get the drivers for a laptop?

 

@DragonRider862: The hardware and drivers are probably mostly the same as with the 6831 - you'll be able to check some through Device Manager. For those that aren't, you may be able to get away with just installing the Vista drivers - sometimes they're exactly the same, other times just slight optimizations. If the 6831 works with XP, you shouldn't have much trouble with the 7811. The Gateway forum should be able to help if you run into problems.

It is slightly easier to just have a one-boot system. XP can clean up (i.e. get rid of) the Vista partition and any others through its boot utility. It's setup utility isn't at all encumbered by Vista - they're all NT File System.

Probably the easiest way to get Run in Vista is Win+R. But I agree it is nice to have the actual button; there is a way to enable it, I believe under Start button --> Right Click--> Properties--> Start Menu Tab --> Customize--> Advanced.

@Bumchoda - Toshiba seems to be amongst the worst in terms of XP support, driverwise that is. With laptops drivers tend to be distributed more by the retailer than the manufacturer. The Toshiba forum probably will be able to help you out some, but I'm not sure all the Toshiba drivers are available for XP. Toshiba and HP seem to be by far the least XP-friendly vendors.

 

Yeah, I looked it up, and the majority of the hardware is the same between the two models. The chipset isn't, though, and that's what I'm most worried about at the moment. I looked up the PM45 on Intel's site, and it had a couple of drivers, but said the graphics driver wasn't available. I did dig up some generic 4 Express Series graphics driver, though, as well as a couple of other things that could potentially work, so hopefully something will get through.

How exactly do I get XP to get rid of Vista? That seems like a useful thing to know if everything goes well. Is it just an option you get when booting off the XP disk?

 

During install, you have it format the C:\ partition then install over it. Give yourself more time with vista before tossing though.