XP install help please

I am going to install XP over Vista just by inserting the new retail version XP CD and booting from it, as I am not that technically savvy to do the fresh install. I have a few questions before I do this:

*Is there anything important I should know/do before I commence this? Eg change BIOS settings, etc etc.

*Do I keep the Vista service partrition?

*Will doing this affect MS Offiice 2007 Activation? I have Office on two other computers, so theoretically I have used my three user licences.

Thanks to all who reply

 

Why not Dual Boot..??

If you have a SATA HDD, you will have to slipstream the sata drivers into the xp disc via N-Lite or....
Disable AHCI in your BIOS.....Run the install with the HDD in IDE mode, complete the install, and in device manager manually install the relevant SATA AHCI driver from the Intel Chipset driver, reboot and enable AHCI in the BIOS - to use the SATA drive in native mode again....but if you have an IDE drive, you do not need to do anything, just boot through the XP disc..!!

Dunno about the vista service partition, probably if you ever need to sell the notebook, it may come in handy....

First of all, if your copy of Office came with your laptop, then that copy is non-transferrable. That aside, there is no way to deactivate Office....but all is not lost. Assuming your copy is retail and not OEM, all you'll need to do is use the phone activation feature for Office. You'll call the activation center, say your activation code, it will cause an error, and you'll be transferred to an operator who will manually verify some details ("how many computers is this copy of Office installed on?") and provide you with the activation response code. If this is an OEM copy, you'll encounter considerably more resistance on the activation hotline, but you wouldn't want to do that anyway since it's illegal to transfer an OEM copy to another computer.

Keep in mind that the Microsoft EULA only allows for the transfer of a retail copy of Office to another computer owned by the same individual once per 90 days. You are only technically allowed to activate more frequently than that in the event of a hardware failure (I've never seen them enforce this though).

[Also keep in mind that if this is a retail copy of Office 2007, you are legally allowed to install one copy on your desktop computer AND one copy on your laptop computer at the same time (one desktop and one portal device as long as they are both owned and used by the same individual). So you may not have to uninstall the other copy.]

 

You should first do a good format of the disk before installing XP. One possibility is to download the Ultimate BootCD and burn it to a CD - the iso contains a number of disk utilities that you can use to format the hard drive after booting from the CD.

Otherwise, there are (or shouldn't be, at any rate) any BIOS settings you need to change, although you should double-check to make sure that the optical drive is at the top of the boot order (it usually is, but nothing's lost by verifying that it is).

By "service partition" do you mean the _Vista restore partition (i.e., the "hidden" one)? I doubt if you'll need to keep it - you won't need it for XP, and I you may not be able to do a reinstallation of _Vista from that partition alone (although I'm not sure on that point). If you want to be able to go back to _Vista, I would suggest making a cloned image of the current drive using something like Acronis True Image and saving the image to CD/DVD. That way, if you want to go back to _Vista at some later date, you just need to restore the cloned image to the drive.

It shouldn't affect Office 2007 activation as that generally keys off of a number of different hardware components on the system, including the motherboard, not the OS alone; however, you may have to reactivate. In any event, it shouldn't be considered as a fourth licensed install, just a reinstallation of one of the original three licenses.

 

How can I see/tell if I have a IDE drive?

 

GO into Device Manager - IDE/ATA/ATAPI controllers and check what else is installed apart from the device channels....
Or download HD Tune or PC Wizard, and they will give you the full info regarding you HDD....

 

It says its a ATA device, so does that mean I have to do all that jazz you mentioned above?

 

ATA - Parallel ATA or Serial ATA..??
It is normally referred to IDE though....
Have you checked with PC Wizard....It will give you almost all the info you need to know about your notebook....!!

 

OK downloaded the app where do I look? Can you guide me... sorry I havent ever done anything like this before.

 

Click on the Drives tab and the first two options in the right upper screen, would give you alot of info about your HDD....Mine is SATA - so it shows up....



The drive controller will let you know in which mode your drive is running, and if you have a SATA HDD - you can see if AHCI if off or on..(Mine is off, so drive is in IDE MODE)



Even HD Tune will show up with most of the info regarding your HDD....



You can also take out your HDD and compare the socket with -- IDE or SATA....

 

Thanks!
Everything is exactly likes yours, except the AHCI it says YES. Does this mean that Windows can be installed as mentioned by you earlier on?

 

screw the dual booting and partitioning. They are unnecessary. if you want to keep vista then keep it, but i see no reason to have both.

if you have a sata drive then SP3 will not be able to identify it. Get an external floppy drive and put your hdd driver onto that. when you boot into the CD it will ask you to load that driver so that SP3 will be able to detect the hard drive.

 

Yeah thats right....You can either N-lite the SATA drivers, which is much more safe..!! Or you can disable AHCI, then install, play around with a few drivers, and then re-enable AHCI....to get the HDD running in native mode....(Its been a while I since I did all that stuff, so go with N-Lite )