Vista Business -> XP Pro -> Vista Business

I just want to clarify a few things on this whole "downgrade" thing that MS is offering. From what I understand, if you have Vista Business or Ultimate you're given the option to "downgrade" to XP Pro (given your OEM gives you recovery discs for both Vista and XP). My question is, by downgrading to XP Pro does it void your original Vista license? If I downgrade to XP, will I no longer be able to switch back to Vista?

 

You can switch back.

 

Exactly what I wanted to hear.

 

Hi,
Being a computer novice I found this link on the Lenovo web site; http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=VSTA-DWNGRD
My question is, is this a difficult or complex thing to do? I will get my X61 in the next day or two and wanted to immediately swap/downgrade OS. Has anybody done it? Any published step by step how to's?
Also I have some proprietary software and when I was looking at buying a computer one person was offering Office 2007 saying he had installed the program on the hard drive? I believe he segmented his hard drive to install the programs they would always be there and you never needed a disc?
I have installed many programs but never to a segmented, I believe, hard drive. Is this the think to do? Is there a way I should be installing Programs beside doing what the disc says to do? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Robert

 

I suggest you try out Vista for a week or two (if you haven't already done so) before chucking it. I know I wouldn't want to go back to XP. But if you need XP or you're really determined to use it, look in the Lenovo forum, I'm sure you can find some stuff about installing XP.

Not worth it IMO. Just hang on to the discs. Also, most programs need to install stuff into your system partition anyway in order to work right. You could keep the CD image on the hard drive I suppose... and reinstall when necessary... but I really wouldn't bother.

 

I would never go back to vista either. I really HATED vista for at least the first month i had it. But now, after i understand it all, I love it and all of its features. Using a computer is just not the same experience on xp as it is on vista.

 

I also recommend that you use Vista for a while. You might find that you love it.