Hi Folks ? Hope your all well. Sorry to bore you again with this vista crap but I have a simple question. Can I remove the hd with vista on, stick in a new hd and reprog with xp without having to download some drivers from Hp. Just trying to keep it simple so when there is no more xp i can bung the vista hd in and update later in life. LT is Compaq pressario. Many thanks for you support. Site as usual is best around. Nel

hi Pan_Irish...
Please tell me that I can get rid of that dastardly Vista on my desk top the same way as a laptop...

thank you i hope

The easiest way is to contact your computer manufacturer - a lot of them are offering Vista *downgrades* so as to allow folks who have tried (and don't like) Vista to revert to XP - this is the easiest way because you'll be getting drivers and stuff from the manufacturer directly, along with a licensed copy of Win XP SP2.

Otherwise, the easiest way is to follow the instructions above- make sure you get every driver you need for your current hardware (every drive includes motherboard drivers, drivers for any installed expansion cards (like NICs, SCSI cards, Graphics Accelerators aka Video cards, chipset drivers, etc.) that you have installed on your computer. You;ll need to make sure that you are grabbing XP drivers, as if you browse to some sites and try to grab drivers it will see that you are running Vista and try to give you Vista ready drivers.

The, you'll need your XP CD, and you can either buy a new HD and install it on there, or else format your current HD, and follow the instructions that Pan_Irish left above.

***WARNING*** If you decide to format your current drive, *BE SURE* You have all the necessary drivers, *especially video card, motherboard, chipset, and NIC - without motherboard drivers, XP may or may not work - without chipset drivers, it may be slow as a snail, without your video card drivers you'll probably be stuck running at tiny 800 x 600 resolution with 16 bit color depth, not a very pretty site, and without your NIC drivers you may not be able to get online at all.

Thank you very much John...I'm gonna get rid of vist no matter what !

I will try HP and see if they offer a down grade first. If they do I shall post that.

thanks again !

Do what Mr.Galt said about the exchange of the operating system from the manufacturer.

Then if that doesn't work,
go get your own copy of XP PRO,
get an OEM copy online for about $139.00 at newegg.c

But you will still need the DRIVERS or you will be up-a-creek and no paddle.