Issues with downgrading HP Pavilion to XP.

[Weaver]

I've recently got an HP Pavilion dv 6404tu laptop as a present from a relative who isn't really keen on computers. that's not exactly the best laptop for its price out there but there's something that makes it much worse. imho, it isn't really suited to run Vista (1gb RAM, inbuilt video card) yet it can't be downgraded to XP. i've found this article when i was looking for XP drivers on HP site. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c01092639&dlc=en&product=3450384
obviously, they don't want me to run XP on this machine. what do i do? are there any third party drivers for XP worth trying? or should i just suck it up and stick to Vista?

 

[Archonsod]

HP are third party drivers. Try checking the equipment manufacturer's pages for drivers; most of the time they should work fine (and generally be about three years more recent than the crap HP provide).

 

[holydave]

I'd change to XP if I were you, but be careful what you wish for.

My Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo came with Vista and could run it OK, but the compatibility issues were driving me round the bend, not to mention the fact that although it looked pretty, it was slower than XP.

So I decided to 'upgrade ' to XP, but it was a royal pain in the arse to be frank. It involved burning my own copy of XP and then 'streamlining' it with XP drivers (highly illegal) to get it to even boot in XP. It took a while to get the process right, but it worked in the end.

In closing, have a go, but be sure to back up all the stuff on your HD before doing so; I lost everything cos I had to delete the Vista partition (stupid 80 gig HD), but at least I've got XP now, which is so346 much better.

 

[Weaver]

damn... sounds like an epic challenge. not something a lamer like me could accomplish.
is there some kind of a guide for dummies or something?

 

[Archonsod]

Be easier to tweak Vista to get it running fine. Disabling Aero, drive indexing (unless you really use it) and telling disk defrag to only run when you damn well ask for it will give you a pretty huge boost performance wise.

 

[iamahorse]

.... And how, mighty Archonsod, do you do that? I am very interested now.

 

[Cymro]

How's vista for backwards compatibility nowadays? Would, say, Fallout work on it?

 

[Rabid Potatoe]

There's always dual boot.

 

[Weaver]

How's vista for backwards compatibility nowadays? Would, say, Fallout work on it?

i didn't try fallout, but all older games i have run okay. except that i couldn't play Hellfire multiplayer. Vista seems to lack tcp/ip support.

 

[Cuireach]

Looks like this laptop has a Sata Hard drive and the drivers for that will have been pre-installed on Vista.  You would need to install those drivers separately when installing XP as XP doesnt come with them.  Although it is quite simple if you have a floppy drive, this is a laptop which does not. 

I got around this on my floppyless desktop computer by creating a slip stream CD. I have a legit CD of XP so created  another installation CD and added the sata HD drivers to this.  When it came to installation the drivers went on with no problems.

http://www.digitgeek.com/how-to-slipstream-sata-drivers-into-xp-cd/

If you are not confident in doing this I would strongly advise you to follow the info provided by Archonsod  and just find a way to tweak vista.

 

[Archonsod]

.... And how, mighty Archonsod, do you do that? I am very interested now.

1. Disable Aero

The quick way is to right click on an empty patch of desktop, select "personalize", "Windows appearance and colours" turn off transparency, click the link for "classic" options and switch the desktop to anything but Aero.
Should give a nice boost if the graphics hardware lacks grunt.

2. Disable drive indexing

Right click the drive in "My Computer", Properties and uncheck the indexing option. It's pointless, it thrashes the drive and unless your hard drive is really badly organised you shouldn't need to search your PC anyway

If you do, hit the indexing options from the start menu. Customize and uncheck folders you're highly unlikely to need to search rapidly. Like /Windows.

3. Disable defrag

Open disk defragmenter from the launch menu (Accessories > system tools).  Uncheck "run on a schedule". Default is to run this constantly, which is stupid. Even under heavy use you shouldn't really need to run it more than once per week.

4. If you have a SATA drive, open the drive properties and make sure "advanced performance" is activated (if available)

5. Services. There's a shedload of un-needed, pointless services will be running. Type "services.msc" in the start bar to open the service tool and disable some un-needed services. If you're curious, googling the name of the service should tell you enough to know if you need it, assuming the name doesn't

6. Sidebar - Unless you use it, close it down and choose not to open when Windows starts.

7. Vista has a built in performance monitor which can (to varying success) recommend performance boosts. Access it via the admin tools (it's a log filter).

 

[Sedericus]

don't downgrade its a royal pain, upgrade to ultimate you get all your tcp/ip capability and you can tweak like all guys above say to work like xp and in some cases better.
any version of vista other than home that i have worked with (i work with a few as i work in an accountancy firm with partners who insist on having flashy laptops) have been fine and once you upgrade to atleast say business then it  vista starts to shine a little...not much..but a little. 

 

[spectre:]

I actually downgraded a friend's laptop to XP two days ago. Took a few damn hours, and I say, if you're actually not sure you can pull it off, don't bother and get to optimizing Vista like Arch suggested.
Dual boot is not a bad idea. If you can pull this off successfully, you can then try to get rid of vista using some partitioning tool. If you won't be able to setup XP though, you still have vista for backup.
(Though I commend the idiots who actually put Vista into 1GB systems).

Anyhoo, if you're really desperate (or have a friend who can do it, that's actually the preferred method, just make sure to buy him really good booze afterwards as thankyous (-:, you need the following:

(o)a whole day's worth of free time (if you're still a reinstall virgin, it can take long and will prolly be stressful).
(o)another PC - for googling (in case there's an error message, or you run into unforseen problems) and downloading drivers.
(o)you might be 'blessed' with a sata drive - in this case a regular xp cd won't do, you need to find a windows version with integrated sata drivers, or an USB floppy and disk drivers.
(o)XP compatrible drivers for all your stuff. Most likely you don't have them so you're going to have to look up the list in the Device Manager and google.
(o)Most likely there will still be pohlenty unknown devices. In this case you have to google their device IDs and search for clues what they may be.
(o)Finally, once you're done, get yourself a Norton Ghost and backup the whole windows partition, so that you don't have to do that ever again (-: 

 

[leprechaun]

Also, don't use Vista's built in defrag, ever. It sits there for hours and hours without actually defragmenting anything even when you tell it to. Use Auslogics disk defrag or another similar program that actually works.

 

[sharp256]

true the build in defrag is ****

I dont like vista that much crashs my computer alot fine on XP & Windows 7 6801 build