How to unistall Vista that is preloaded on laptop

castle

I have vista preloaded on an acer laptop and I want to replace it with XP, I do not have any vista back up disks etc, I dont seem to be able unistall v ista via unistall program option, any idea's on how to do this thanks

yoyo

You cant uninstall vista, you can however use your XP disc to wipe vista and install it, before doing this make sure you can get windows xp drivers for your laptop, they may not be available, and you will be left without a fully useable laptop (ie drivers for webcam, chipset, sound etc may not have xp compatable ones).
I would reccomend creating a vista recovery dvd if possible, or preserve the restore partition on the machine, windows 7 is a better upgrade on a newer laptop as it can use the vista drivers

Nick

stephendevlin

Just put the disk in and install xp. It will wipe vista for you. you cant just uninstall vista "in vista" as its the operating system. Why dont you upgrade to windows 7 if your laptop is decent.

Its most likely that the vista installation is preloaded within a partition on your hard drive.

To put XP on your laptop, just back any data you wish, such as iTunes, etc.

Place the media with XP on your laptop, ensure that the BIOS recognises this media as the first boot option.

Proceed with installation, which will wipe your existing Operating System.

Though note, you might encounter problems with SATA drivers, so you might have to slipstream these drivers onto the installation media.

An alternative would be to install Win 7.

Is there a specific reason for choosing XP?

castle

The reason I want to put XP on is because I already have it so dont have the spare cash at the moment to buy Win 7, Vista is poor and I find XP is great OS,
When I install XP will this also unistall Vista as I would rathar have it gone altogether as it takes up so much space, thanks

Yes it will delete vista, during the installation you will be asked where to place the new OS, this is generally the C: drive.

Again, you will need to ensure that you have a snapshot of all the components on your laptop, it might be a good idea to google your 'laptop model with XP' to see if any other users expirenced any complications with the XP installation, also a look over on your manufacturers website with the laptop model number in the support section to see if the appropriate drivers for your laptop components are supported under XP.

Generally the biggest obsticle when installing XP on newer systems, is SATA support, you may find when during the installation that the XP media cannot find your hard drive and as mentioned in a previous post, you may have to obtain certain drivers and slipstream them onto the XP installation.

XP is an old OS and whilst it has proven to be a stable system, NSA has recently advised users to migrate because of security concerns.

If performance is an issue for you, and the reason for you to migrate, You could always disable all the eye candy etc in Vista and give it a more classic look, which is similar to XP.

DrGreenthumb

well with regards to installing xp on that laptop, if your using sata hdd's you'll have to make another xp disc and include the sata drivers otherwise you'll never get anywhere,

if memory serves correctly only xp install discs that have service pack 3 have the sata drivers