Vista back to XP the easy way?

[dodgy368]

Upgraded to Vista and not impressed.:(
How do I go back to XP?

[zaphodiv]

Make sure you have current backups of all your important files on seperate media and that you can actually read the backups.
If the computer has a restore utility or came with a restore CD try it.
Otherwise check you have all the drivers you need and reinstall with an XP CD.

[lightshow]

I agree and would like to add, totally wipe your drive clean with a NTFS reformat (not quick).

Last thing you want are some old System32 files from Vista messing up your XP installation.

[S!X]

I agree and would like to add, totally wipe your drive clean with a NTFS reformat (not quick).

Last thing you want are some old System32 files from Vista messing up your XP installation.

Zero fill the hard drive with a boot cd (Hirens most likely), then format it :D

[dodgy368]

Is there no way to "roll back" to xp?
XP has been saved on C drive in a folder called Windows Old, why has it done this?

[lynx]

Is there no way to "roll back" to xp?
XP has been saved on C drive in a folder called Windows Old, why has it done this?
AFAIK the upgrade from XP to Vista is really a fresh install, so all the original XP files should still be intact in the "Windows Old" folder.

Theoretically all you need to do is tell the boot loader to use that version instead. You probably need to rename the folder back to Windows too, and you can only do that in repair mode. There may be other issues, but it's not something I've tried to I can't be sure.

Make a partition image (using Ghost or similar) first.