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Hi all... A friend of a friend was asking about how to downgrade an MSI
laptop from Vista to XP.

Is there an MS approved process to follow.

Or do you go via MSI or the original retailer.

I recall a "downgrade CD" being mentioned here a while ago. Are they
freely available.

Would hate to steer her wrong as she's moderately computer-phobic.

Regards
Lodi

Lodi wrote:
> Hi all... A friend of a friend was asking about how to downgrade an MSI
> laptop from Vista to XP.
>
> Is there an MS approved process to follow.
>
> Or do you go via MSI or the original retailer.
>
> I recall a "downgrade CD" being mentioned here a while ago. Are they
> freely available.
>
> Would hate to steer her wrong as she's moderately computer-phobic.
>
> Regards
> Lodi

It only (legally) applies to Vista business and Vista Ultimate I
believe, not to any of the home versions AFAIK. And the downgrade is to
XP pro not XP home.
MS don't supply the media, you have to source that from the
manufacturer, or a mate/torrent etc. (its intended for corporates that
are trying to keep everyone on a homogenous platform, so its assumed
they have install media already).
Best bet is to go back to the shop and see if they have a spare XP Pro
install disc for that laptop they can give/copy for you. That way it
should have the drivers etc with it.
After that there is just the issue of getting it activated.. I have
heard that requires a phone call to MS to get an activation code.

Or of course there is always the screw MS, I'll pirate it option. takes
away the hassle of dealing with MS, but you might have to deal with
warez sites and the viruses that go with that option instead. Its a
50:50 call which is more hassle

HTH.

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008 08:59:27 +0100 (CET), Lodi <> wrote:

>Hi all... A friend of a friend was asking about how to downgrade an MSI
>laptop from Vista to XP.
>
>Is there an MS approved process to follow.
>
>Or do you go via MSI or the original retailer.
>
>I recall a "downgrade CD" being mentioned here a while ago. Are they
>freely available.
>
>Would hate to steer her wrong as she's moderately computer-phobic.
>
>Regards
>Lodi



Only for the Pro version..

On Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:59:27 +0100, Lodi wrote:

> Hi all... A friend of a friend was asking about how to downgrade an MSI
> laptop from Vista to XP.

That is not a "downgrade" - that is actually an upgrade.

Altho', if your friend really want to upgrade you'll move completely away
from using MS Windows altogether.


--
Dilger: "Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing
company that flogs third rate technology products."

Carnations wrote:
> On Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:59:27 +0100, Lodi wrote:
>
>> Hi all... A friend of a friend was asking about how to downgrade an
>> MSI laptop from Vista to XP.
>
> That is not a "downgrade" - that is actually an upgrade.
>
Technically it is a downgrade. A move to a newer version, no matter how
bug-ridden is referred to as an upgrade, so a move to an older version
is technically a downgrade. Even if the older version is better.

For example, a move from one version of OpenSuSE to the next is
technically an upgrade, though functionally it will be worse than the
previous version.

Cheers,

Cliff

--

Tax is not theft.

PeeCee wrote:
> There is unlikely to be an MSI approved process, but the 'usual' process
> goes like this.
>
> 1 Go to the Laptop makers website and download a copy of the XP drivers
> for that 'exact' model Laptop.
> (Sound, Video, Motherboard, Modem, Wifi, etc. They will vary extensively
> in number and form depending on the model)
> Burn these drivers to CD.
> 2 Backup the personal data on the Laptop.
> 3 Ensure you have the restore disks for Vista that came with the Laptop.
> This may entail burning them yourself from an Alll Programs Menu option
> if there were no disks in the box.
> Alternatively install something like Acronis True Image and create an
> image of your Vista Hard drive to DVD's
> 4 Reboot the Laptop and enter the Bios, set the CD/DVD drive as the
> first boot device (it probably already is but it pays to check)
> 5 Put the XP setup CD in the CD/DVD drive and reboot the Laptop.
> 6 Follow the instructions on screen to install a base install of XP,
> replacing the current Vista install.
> 7 After XP has rebooted and finshed installing insert your driver CD and
> install the hardware drivers.
> 8 Install an AntiVirus program.
> 9 Connect to the Internet and start downloading a) AntiVirus updates
> b)Windows XP updates.
> The number of XP updates will depend on the service pack number of your
> XP install CD
> 10 Install any applications like word processors, games, accountancy
> suites etc.
> 11 Restore your personal data.

Sadly its not that easy, you will have to either find a USB floppy drive
and put the sata drivers onto a floppy and press f6 during install, or
else slipstream them to the install image and then burn that.

PeeCee wrote:

> Not necessarily true for late model chipsets.
> Bios's these days have IDE emulation for SATA drives, though I'm more
> familiar with desktop motherboards rather than Laptop.
> But a consideration all the same.
>
> The above 11 point 'method' should be enough for a competent technically
> oriented person to make the change.
> Hopefully it is also enough to make the less skilled realise they are
> out of their depth.

The thing is, that it will be set to ahci by default and changing it off
this is just disabling the command queuing which can be very beneficial
when it starts to thrash the swap file IME.

On Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:19:50 +1300, Enkidu wrote:

> Technically it is a downgrade. A move to a newer version, no matter how
> bug-ridden is referred to as an upgrade, so a move to an older version
> is technically a downgrade. Even if the older version is better.

A move to a better version is an upgrade. A move to an inferior version
is a downgrade.

While you're correct about the numerical nature of the progression, when
it comes to the actual quality of the version in question, if a previous
version is in fact has better features and higher quality of
implementation, then moving to a lower numerical version is in fact an
upgrade.


--
Dilger: "Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing
company that flogs third rate technology products."

Somewhere on teh intarwebs "" typed:
> PeeCee wrote:
>
>> Not necessarily true for late model chipsets.
>> Bios's these days have IDE emulation for SATA drives, though I'm more
>> familiar with desktop motherboards rather than Laptop.
>> But a consideration all the same.
>>
>> The above 11 point 'method' should be enough for a competent
>> technically oriented person to make the change.
>> Hopefully it is also enough to make the less skilled realise they are
>> out of their depth.
>
> The thing is, that it will be set to ahci by default and changing it
> off this is just disabling the command queuing which can be very
> beneficial when it starts to thrash the swap file IME.

Like Paul, I'm more familiar with desktop motherboards but every one I've
set up is set to IDE emulation by default, you have to change to AHCI
manually.

Also, with my last build, I didn't do the F6 floppy install as I didn't know
I'd need it for NCQ. later, when I realised, I did a registry hack that got
it working fine.

BTW, real-world impact of NCQ is next-to-nothing.
--
Shaun.

On Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:27:26 +1300, Puddle <> wrote:

>~misfit~ wrote:
>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs "" typed:
>>> PeeCee wrote:
>>>
>>>> Not necessarily true for late model chipsets.
>>>> Bios's these days have IDE emulation for SATA drives, though I'm more
>>>> familiar with desktop motherboards rather than Laptop.
>>>> But a consideration all the same.
>>>>
>>>> The above 11 point 'method' should be enough for a competent
>>>> technically oriented person to make the change.
>>>> Hopefully it is also enough to make the less skilled realise they are
>>>> out of their depth.
>>> The thing is, that it will be set to ahci by default and changing it
>>> off this is just disabling the command queuing which can be very
>>> beneficial when it starts to thrash the swap file IME.
>>
>> Like Paul, I'm more familiar with desktop motherboards but every one I've
>> set up is set to IDE emulation by default, you have to change to AHCI
>> manually.
>>
>> Also, with my last build, I didn't do the F6 floppy install as I didn't know
>> I'd need it for NCQ. later, when I realised, I did a registry hack that got
>> it working fine.
>>
>> BTW, real-world impact of NCQ is next-to-nothing.
>
>Just interested in that last statement of yours, have you read some
>articles about this or just your own findings? I am not doubting it but
>would love to read about it a bit. You think it is just a marketing
>tool? Is it because the queue it uses is just too small? SCSI has a
>similar thing doesn't it but a much larger queue if I remember correctly.

With SCSI, you certainly see a difference. But it really only shows
up when you have multiple applications frequently accessing different
parts of the disk. I expect that it will be the same with SATA
queuing. And most people do not have that sort of use of their disks,
hence they do not see any difference. SCSI drives tend to be used in
servers and with transaction processing into databases, and there you
really see the difference.